Algernon
Masculine · “with moustaches”
The mouse in Flowers for Algernon is called Algernon because the name sounds absurdly grand for a mouse. That is the whole joke, and it is a good one: a laboratory animal with the name of an English earl, undergoing the same experiment as the man telling the story, and dying first.
How old is the name Algernon?
Algernon first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Algernon alive today was born around 1971, making them about 54 years old. About 700 people named Algernon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Algernon most popular?
Algernon peaked in 1886, reaching #959 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Norman nickname about a mustache to Algernon
The story of Algernon
The story was published first as a short piece and then as a novel, told entirely in the narrator's own progress reports — misspelled at the start, precise in the middle, and coming apart again at the end. The mouse runs the maze faster than he does at first and slower later, which is how he learns what is coming. It is one of the very few pieces of science fiction that has never left school reading lists, and the name is inseparable from it now.
Meaning
with moustaches
The name began as a Norman nickname meaning moustached, applied to a companion of the Conqueror at a moment when Normans shaved and the English did not — so a man with a mustache stood out. It became hereditary in one aristocratic family and stayed there, which is why it reads as impossibly grand and why it has almost never been given by anybody outside that world.
How the name formed
- a Norman nickname about a mustache
- the name becomes hereditary in one aristocratic family
- an English comedy fixes its comic associations
- a laboratory mouse carries it in a novel of 1966
- used in American records from the 1880s
Related forms: Algernon · Als Gernons
Pronouncing Algernon
AL-jur-nun
Three syllables with the stress at the front. The g is soft, which the spelling does not warn a reader about.
Nicknames for Algernon
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
- 1886
- Most boys named
- 197229 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #959reached in 1886
- Change vs 2014
- −37.5%5 in 2016, from 8
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.
Algernon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Algernon in French — same name
- Als Gernons in Norman French — related form
Algernons among us
people named Algernon are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Algernon sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is genuinely unrepeated — a boy carrying it will not meet another.
- The meaning is concrete, specific and rather funny.
- It has a real Norman history and a serious modern novel attached.
- It carries a heavy comic and class association in Britain in particular.
- The obvious short form sounds like algae.
- It has been out of ordinary use for a century.
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Algernon
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Algernons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Algernon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Algernon in 2025?
- Algernon is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Algernon with classmates?
- Algernon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anthony#46 · Andrew#73 · Alexander#30 · Aaron#80 · Adam#101 · Arthur#87 · Albert#614 · Austin#113
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Algernon? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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