Name Trends

See the popularity of first names over time in the USA

How popular is “River” in the USA?

Number of people named “River” by birth year

This chart shows how many people named “River” were born each year.

Due to changes to population growth and data collection rates over time, this isn't a good chart for understanding popularity.

Popularity of “River” by birth year

This chart shows how the popularity of “River” has changed over time.

Popularity is the number of people named “River” born in that year divided by the total number of births for that year.

Bias in sex for “River” by birth year

This chart shows how “River” has been used as gendered name over time. The scale ranges from 1 (only females) to -1 (only males).

Sex is a required field in SSA's Social Security Card applications (only 2 options). Most applications are filed around a person's time of birth.

The raw data

This table shows the data used in the above charts.

Year Count Proportion Females Males Bias toward female
1971 6 0.000001748 6 -100%
1972 8 0.000002545 8 -100%
1974 5 0.000001645 5 -100%
1975 7 0.000002318 7 -100%
1981 6 0.000001734 6 -100%
1982 6 0.00000171 6 -100%
1986 5 0.000001406 5 -100%
1987 13 0.000003605 13 -100%
1988 18 0.000004871 5 13 -44%
1989 40 0.000010405 40 -100%
1990 43 0.000010879 10 33 -53%
1991 40 0.000010269 12 28 -40%
1992 44 0.000011455 7 37 -68%
1993 66 0.000017505 12 54 -64%
1994 153 0.000041155 12 141 -84%
1995 303 0.000082738 25 278 -83%
1996 305 0.000083626 36 269 -76%
1997 434 0.000119699 45 389 -79%
1998 488 0.000132673 53 435 -78%
1999 414 0.000112078 55 359 -73%
2000 365 0.000096563 51 314 -72%
2001 395 0.000105519 72 323 -64%
2002 396 0.000105931 67 329 -66%
2003 460 0.000120979 72 388 -69%
2004 520 0.000136093 100 420 -62%
2005 568 0.00014773 92 476 -68%
2006 686 0.000173399 181 505 -47%
2007 693 0.00017335 229 464 -34%
2008 860 0.000218792 249 611 -42%
2009 900 0.000235591 281 619 -38%
2010 896 0.000242441 262 634 -42%
2011 938 0.000256439 293 645 -38%
2012 1134 0.000310059 412 722 -27%
2013 1318 0.000361525 488 830 -26%
2014 1951 0.00052639 708 1243 -27%
2015 2466 0.000666322 950 1516 -23%
2016 2983 0.000813095 1131 1852 -24%
2017 3150 0.000880824 1181 1969 -25%
2018 3408 0.000969312 1333 2075 -22%
2019 3812 0.001098264 1441 2371 -24%
2020 4375 0.001309654 1561 2814 -29%
2021 5388 0.001590343 1885 3503 -30%
2022 5421 0.00160236 1927 3494 -29%
2023 4695 0.001417917 1584 3111 -33%
2024 4572 0.001373591 1434 3138 -37%

Explore other names

These names are alphabetically near to River:

  1. Rivaldo
  2. Rivan
  3. Rivansh
  4. Rivee
  5. Riven
  6. River (this page)
  7. Rivera
  8. Riverlee
  9. Riverleigh
  10. Riverlin
  11. Riverly