Rune
Rune reached its high-water mark in 2025 at number 1,778, and has been recorded 861 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 1,778th. About 860 Runes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 5.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Rune boys named Rune
Girls and boys called Rune
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 148 girls and 713 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 29 to 90.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 11 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 861
- Estimated living today
- 860
- Median age today
- 5
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 1,778th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,778th
- First recorded
- 2001
- Girls / boys
- 148 / 713
How old the living Runes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 861 babies given the name since 2001, about 860 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 750 of them are children and 0 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2020 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Runes
- Rune Jarstein (born 1984)Norwegian association football player
- Rune Bratseth (born 1961)Norwegian association football player
- Rune Dahmke (born 1993)German handball player
- Rune Larsson (1924–2016)Swedish hurdler
- Rune Velta (born 1989)Norwegian ski jumper
- Rune Carlsson (1909–1943)Swedish footballer
- Rune Temte (born 1965)Norwegian actor
- Rune Eriksen (born 1975)Norwegian guitarist
People named Rune with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rune is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Rune is most concentrated in California (4.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Rune peaked:
Rune elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway boys | Rune | 20,234 | 4th |
| Belgium boys | Rune | 3,259 | 21st |
| Belgium girls | Rune | 690 | 157th |
| Denmark boys | Rune | 148 | 50th |
| England and Wales boys | Rune | 134 | 1,124th |
| England and Wales girls | Rune | 12 | 4,201st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Rune: rank by region
In 2025, Rune was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Rune | 229 | 26 |
| Flanders | Rune | 329 | 16 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Rune appears in the lists for Province of Limburg (109th), Province of West Flanders (121st), Province of Flemish Brabant (218th), Province of East Flanders (226th), Province of East Flanders (250th) and Province of Antwerp (326th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Rune by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 5 | 535th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Rune among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Rune | 345 | 632 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Rune against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.