Agastya
Masculine
Agastya is one of the oldest names still being given to babies: it belongs to a sage of the Rigveda, and in Indian astronomy it is also the name of Canopus, the bright star low in the southern sky. Three syllables that land on the middle one, with that soft -tya ending Sanskrit does so well. It has been said aloud, in one language or another, for something like three thousand years.
How old is the name Agastya?
Agastya first appears in US birth records in 2002 — 23 years ago. The typical Agastya is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,600 people named Agastya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Agastya most popular?
Agastya peaked in 2025, reaching #929 nationally. Today it ranks #929, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Agastya appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Agasti to Agastya
The story of Agastya
The name belongs to Agastya, one of the seven great rishis of Vedic tradition, credited with hymns in the first book of the Rigveda. He travels south in the epics, and in Tamil tradition he becomes Agathiyar, the figure to whom the earliest grammar of the Tamil language is traced. The name also traveled by sea: stone images of Agastya stand in the temple complexes of Java, carried east with Hinduism more than a thousand years ago. In the sky it names Canopus, the star that rises over the southern horizon in autumn.
Meaningscholars disagree
Traditionally read as "mover of mountains"; also recorded as the name of a tree
The traditional Sanskrit reading breaks the name into aga, "mountain" or "the unmoving one", and a root of throwing or hurling — tied to the story in which the Vindhya range bows before the sage Agastya. Lexicographers also connect it to agasti, the Sanskrit name of the tree Sesbania grandiflora. Both readings are seriously held, and neither has pushed the other out.
How the name formed
- Agasti
- Agastya
- Agathiyar
Related forms: अगस्त्य · Agathiyar · Agastya · Agastya · Agastya · Agasthya
Pronouncing Agastya
uh-GUST-yuh
Stress on the middle syllable. The -tya at the end is one blended sound, t sliding straight into y, not "tee-uh" — though English speakers often land on "uh-GAS-tee-uh" until corrected once.
Nicknames for Agastya
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 2002
- Most boys named
- 2025253 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #929reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +23.4%253 in 2025, from 205
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Agastya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- अगस्त्य in Sanskrit (Devanagari) — transliteration
- Agathiyar in Tamil — related form
- Agastya in Hindi — same name
- Agastya in Telugu — same name
- Agastya in Javanese — same name
- Agasthya in English (variant spelling) — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New Jersey.
Agastyas among us
people named Agastya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 6,751 born in 2025 was named Agastya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Erasmo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Agastya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Erasmo climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Erasmo's path sketches the road Agastya is walking now.
Agastya is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Agastya is headed
Agastya looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 39% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Agastya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Agastya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- An unbroken written record from the hymns of the Rigveda to the present, which very few names in use today can claim.
- Recognized across Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, and known in Java too — the same name in several linguistic worlds.
- Also the Indian name for the star Canopus, so the name has an object in the sky attached to it.
- Spelled the way it sounds once the -tya is learned, and the spelling has been stable for centuries.
- Agasthya, with an h, is a common alternative spelling, so expect to clarify which one you mean fairly often.
- The -tya cluster trips up English speakers on first meeting. Most people get it after one correction, but there will be a first attempt.
- Outside communities that know the sage, a child is very likely to be the only Agastya in the building — which means no surname initial, and also no shared reference point until he supplies one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Agastya
Masculine · #929 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Agastyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Agastya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Agastya in 2025?
- Agastya ranks #929 among US boy names in 2025, with 253 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Agastya?
- About 1 in every 6,751 US boys born in 2025 was named Agastya — 253 in all.
- Will my child share the name Agastya with classmates?
- Agastya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Agastya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Halo#929 · Isa#929 · Heath#929 · Dillon#929 · Caius#927 · Darian#927 · Kiaan#924 · Judson#934
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Agastya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Agastya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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