Ares
Masculine · Ancient Greek roots
Ares is given to both — 8,284 boys and 292 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Ares is one of the oldest names still being given to children — it belonged to the Greek god of war and was already old when Homer wrote the Iliad, where Zeus calls him the most hateful of the gods. Two syllables, five letters, and it lands cleanly in English and in Spanish alike, which is part of why it turns up now in California, Texas and Florida more than anywhere else.
How old is the name Ares?
Ares first appears in US birth records in 1983 — 42 years ago. The typical Ares is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 8,200 people named Ares are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ares most popular?
Ares peaked in 2025, reaching #290 nationally. Today it ranks #290, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Ares appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Ἄρης (Ancient Greek) to Ares
The story of Ares
Ares belongs to the oldest layer of Greek religion, and the name appears in Greek texts from the Homeric poems onward, where he is the war god — quarrelsome, disliked by the other Olympians, and no one's favorite. The Romans matched him to their own Mars, but the Greek form stayed Greek, and it survives in modern Greece as Áris, a living given name rather than a museum piece. In English the name traveled through mythology books and classrooms rather than through families, which is why its use as an actual first name here is very recent. Its foothold in Spanish-speaking communities in the US gave it a second, quite different sound, and both readings are in use today.
Meaningscholars disagree
Linked to Greek words for battle and ruin
The usual reading connects Ἄρης to the Greek noun arē, 'bane, ruin, curse,' and to a sense of 'battle strife' — the god's name as a plain word for what war does. Other scholars treat it as pre-Greek and unexplained, a divine name inherited by the Greeks rather than built from their own vocabulary. Both positions are seriously held.
How the name formed
- ἌρηςAncient Greek
- AresLatin form
- Άρης / ÁrisModern Greek
- AresEnglish, Spanish
Related forms: Ἄρης · Άρης (Aris) · Ares · Ares · Арес (Ares)
Pronouncing Ares
AIR-eez
AIR-eez is the English pronunciation, from the mythology. In Spanish the same spelling is said AH-res, with both syllables short and the stress on the first — worth deciding early, since both versions are in real use in the US and each side will assume the other.
Nicknames for Ares
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
- 1983
- Most boys named
- 20251,157 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #290reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +1.5%1,157 in 2025, from 1,140
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.
Ares in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ἄρης in Ancient Greek — transliteration
- Άρης (Aris) in Modern Greek — same name
- Ares in Spanish — same name
- Ares in Italian — same name
- Арес (Ares) in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Aress among us
people named Ares are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,476 born in 2025 was named Ares
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 Hollis test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ares's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hollis climbed just as high around 1908, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hollis's path sketches the road Ares is walking now.
Ares 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 Ares is headed
Ares looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 43% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Ares beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ares in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters, spelled exactly as it sounds in both English and Spanish — no silent letters, no alternate spellings competing for attention.
- A documented record stretching back to the earliest Greek literature, unbroken as a name in Greece itself.
- Ari is a ready-made short form that already stands alone as a name, so there is a softer everyday option built in.
- Instantly recognizable without being common — most people will know the reference and still not know another child with it.
- It will be heard as Aries, the zodiac sign, constantly — in roll calls, on the phone, at the doctor's office. Expect a lifetime of gentle correcting, and note that the two words are genuinely close in English speech.
- The god himself gets a bad press in the Greek sources: Homer's Olympians find him brutal and tiresome. Most people only remember 'god of war,' but anyone who reads further finds an unflattering character.
- The pronunciation splits by language, so a child may answer to AIR-eez at school and AH-res at home. That works fine for many families, but it is worth choosing which one you will correct people to.
- Its rise here is very recent and still climbing, so the name will read as belonging to this moment rather than to any earlier generation of American children.
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Ares
Masculine · Ancient Greek roots · #290 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aress are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,200 people named Ares are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ares in 2025?
- Ares ranks #290 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,157 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ares?
- About 1 in every 1,476 US boys born in 2025 was named Ares — 1,157 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ares with classmates?
- Ares will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ares
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Avery#291 · Lennox#289 · Jeremy#292 · Lukas#288 · Reid#293 · Cash#287 · Kash#286 · Kenneth#294
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ares? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ares and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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