Samson
The boy's name Samson has been in the national records since 1892, with 12,879 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 477th. About 12,000 Samsons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 12.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Samson
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 12,879
- Estimated living today
- 12,000
- Median age today
- 12
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 477th
- Rank in 2025
- 477th
- First recorded
- 1892
How old the living Samsons are
born that year still alive today
Of the 12,879 babies given the name since 1892, about 12,000 are alive — 93 in every hundred. Roughly 7,500 of them are children and 260 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2013 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Middle English Sampson, Sampsoun, Samson, from Latin Samson, from Ancient Greek Σαμψών, from Hebrew שִׁמְשׁוֹן.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Samsons
- Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888)Jewish theologian, Germany 19th century
- Samson Siasia (born 1967)Nigerian association football player
- Samson of Dol (490–565)Welsh saint who settled down in Brittany (c. C.E.485 — c. 565)
- Samson Kitur (1966–2003)Athletics competitor from Kenya
- Samson Baidoo (born 2004)Austrian association football player
- Samson Samsonov (1921–2002)Soviet and Russian film director
- Samson François (1924–1970)French pianist and composer
- Samson Godwin (born 1983)Nigerian footballer
People named Samson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Samson is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Samson is most concentrated in Hawaii (12.4×), Utah (2.5×), Arizona (2.0×), Washington (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Samson peaked:
Samson elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Samson | 1,920 | 1,023rd |
| England and Wales boys | Samson | 1,572 | 452nd |
| Norway boys | Samson | 237 | 357th |
| France girls | Samson | 115 | 598th |
| Ireland boys | Samson | 55 | 468th |
| Switzerland boys | Samson | 45 | 691st |
| Scotland boys | Samson | 23 | 602nd |
| Poland boys | Samson | 20 birth registrations | 510th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Samson | 4 | 342nd |
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.
Samson: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Samson | 35 | 0.003% | 507th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Samson | 9 | 0.002% | 606th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Samson | 1 | 0.027% | 8th |
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.
Samson by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 12 | 532nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Samson 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 | Samson | 32 | 58 |
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
Samson 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.