Ryan
Ryan is a boy's name that peaked in 1985, when it was the 12th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 99th. About 948,000 Ryans are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 33.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Ryan boys named Ryan
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 991,747
- Estimated living today
- 948,000
- Median age today
- 33
- Peak year
- 1985
- Best rank
- 12th
- Rank in 2025
- 99th
- First recorded
- 1906
- Girls / boys
- 27,624 / 964,123
How old the living Ryans are
born that year still alive today
Of the 991,747 babies given the name since 1906, about 948,000 are alive — 96 in every hundred. Roughly 154,000 of them are children and 1,900 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1992 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 Ryans
- Ryan Gosling (born 1980)Canadian actor
- Ryan Reynolds (born 1976)Canadian-American actor and entrepreneur
- Ryan Giggs (born 1973)Welsh association football player and coach
- Ryan O'Neal (1941–2023)American actor
- Ryan Babel (born 1986)Dutch association football player
- Ryan Phillippe (born 1974)American actor
- Ryan Lochte (born 1984)American swimmer
- Ryan Gravenberch (born 2002)Dutch association football player
People named Ryan with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Ryan is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Ryan is most concentrated in New Hampshire (1.9×), Alaska (1.8×), Nevada (1.7×), Hawaii (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1985
The most popular boys’ names the year Ryan peaked:
Ryan elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Ryan | 69,066 | 7th |
| Scotland boys | Ryan | 21,221 | 1st |
| France boys | Ryan | 19,895 | 71st |
| Ireland boys | Ryan | 13,104 | 6th |
| New Zealand boys | Ryan | 10,468 | 14th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Ryan | 5,200 | 2nd |
| Italy boys | Ryan | 4,322 | — |
| Belgium boys | Ryan | 2,778 | 71st |
| Switzerland boys | Ryan | 2,175 | 63rd |
| Poland boys | Ryan | 507 birth registrations | 180th |
| Norway boys | Ryan | 379 | 243rd |
| England and Wales girls | Ryan | 24 | 2,411th |
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.
Ryan: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Ryan | 1,160 | 0.093% | 84th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Ryan | 784 | 0.180% | 34th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Ryan | 230 | 0.353% | 15th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Ryan | 1 | 0.027% | 10th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Ryan is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.36% of children were given it – 223 of them.
Ryan: rank by region
In 2025, Ryan was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Ryan | 188 | 31 |
| Brussels | Ryan | 187 | 7 |
In 2023, Ryan was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Ryan | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, Ryan was given 2 times or more in 2 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Łódzkie | Ryan | 183 | 2 |
| Wielkopolskie | Ryan | 248 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Ryan appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (177th), Province of West Flanders (178th), Province of Antwerp (181st), Brussels-Capital Region (187th) and Province of East Flanders (198th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 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.
Ryan by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 109 | 150th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Ryan 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Ryan | 7,415 | 9,555 |
| Finland boys | Ryan | 202 | 287 |
| the Netherlands girls | Ryan | 54 | 107 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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.
Where Ryan lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 836 men called Ryan were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Ryan | 6 | 0.137 | 651 |
| Málaga | Ryan | 66 | 0.075 | 791 |
| Tarragona | Ryan | 33 | 0.075 | 939 |
| Palmas, Las | Ryan | 37 | 0.064 | 1,309 |
| Barcelona | Ryan | 177 | 0.061 | 986 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Ryan | 56 | 0.056 | 1,197 |
Listed in 27 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 25 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Ryan 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.