Unknown
Unknown is a boy's name that peaked in 1954, when it was the 308th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 2,718th. About 15,000 Unknowns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 66.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Unknown boys named Unknown
Girls and boys called Unknown
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Unknown crossed from girls to boys in 1957, having already crossed in 1940, and has stayed there for 16 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 70% boys, and in 2025 it was 49%.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 93 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
- 19,714
- Estimated living today
- 15,000
- Median age today
- 66
- Peak year
- 1954
- Best rank
- 308th
- Rank in 2025
- 2,718th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 9,826 / 9,888
How old the living Unknowns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 19,714 babies given the name since 1880, about 15,000 are alive — 76 in every hundred. Roughly 2,400 of them are children and 8,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1959 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 Unknown is most common
Across the country Unknown is recorded 4.55 times per 100,000 births, so these are the states above that line. Only states with 50 or more recorded Unknowns are ranked here: below that a handful of births makes a rate that moves on chance alone.
Counts favour the big states, which is why the same few lead this list for almost every name.
Births recorded in each state since 1910. A name given to fewer than five babies in one state in one year is not published, so a name's quietest states are missing from this rather than showing zero. Browse names by state.
Names of 1954
The most popular boys’ names the year Unknown peaked:
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.