Atlas
Feminine · Greek roots · “bearer”
Atlas is given to both — 1,333 girls and 25,893 boys since 1880. See Atlas as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Atlas has been the name of the sky-bearer since Hesiod's Theogony, written around the seventh century BC, and the name of a book of maps since Gerardus Mercator borrowed it for his collection in 1595. Two syllables, both of them plain, and no English speaker needs to be told how to say it or spell it. Few names arrive already carrying an ocean, a mountain range and a vertebra.
How old is the name Atlas?
Atlas first appears in US birth records in 1910 — 115 years ago. The typical Atlas is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,200 people named Atlas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Atlas most popular?
Atlas peaked in 2021, reaching #1242 nationally. Today it ranks #1478, 236 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Átlas (Greek) to Atlas
The story of Atlas
In Greek myth Atlas is a Titan who, after the war against the gods, is set to hold the heavens apart from the earth — an image fixed in poetry by Hesiod and repeated by every writer after him. His name spread outward onto the map: the Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa, and the Atlantic, the sea beyond them. In 1595 the geographer Gerardus Mercator titled his collected maps after Atlas, and that is why the book on your shelf is called an atlas at all. Anatomists later gave the name to the topmost vertebra, the small bone that holds up the skull — the same idea, shrunk to fit a body.
Meaningscholars disagree
bearer, one who endures
The long-standing Greek reading connects the name to the verb root meaning 'to bear' or 'to endure' — the one who carries. Other linguists argue the name is pre-Greek, taken into Greek from an older language of the region along with the figure himself, in which case the 'bearer' sense is a later fit rather than the origin. Both readings are seriously held.
How the name formed
- ÁtlasGreek
- AtlasLatin
- AtlasEnglish
Related forms: Άτλας · Atlante · Атлант (Atlant) · Atlas · Atlas · Atlas
Pronouncing Atlas
AT-lass
Stress on the first syllable, the second said lightly. The same in English, Spanish, French and Turkish; Greek and Italian shift toward a-TLAS and Atlante.
Nicknames for Atlas
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
- 1910
- Most girls named
- 2021189 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1242reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −8.8%145 in 2025, from 159
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.
Atlas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Άτλας in Greek — transliteration
- Atlante in Italian — related form
- Атлант (Atlant) in Russian — related form
- Atlas in Spanish — same name
- Atlas in French — same name
- Atlas in Turkish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Atlass among us
people named Atlas are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,085 born in 2025 was named Atlas
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 Autum test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Atlas's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Autum climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Autum's path sketches the road Atlas is walking now.
Atlas sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Atlas is headed
Atlas looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 20% 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.
Atlas beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Atlas in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelling and pronunciation are already known to every English speaker from the map book — nothing to repeat, correct or spell out on the phone.
- Two syllables with a hard opening consonant, which carries across a playground and sits easily before most surnames.
- The same spelling works in Spanish, French and Turkish, which matters in the states where the name is strongest.
- A documented record stretching from archaic Greek poetry through Renaissance cartography to modern anatomy — a name with a long paper trail, not a recent coinage.
- It is also a common word and a common company name — moving firms, gyms, insurance, tires. A child will meet the word on trucks and signs, which some families like and others find flattening.
- The myth is a punishment: a figure condemned to hold up the sky forever. Most people hear strength in it, but the sense of a burden is there in the story too.
- The name is climbing quickly, so it will feel unusual in early classrooms and considerably less so among children a decade younger. Rare now does not mean rare for life.
- For a girl the spelling is used, but by a very small number of families, so the name will be read as a boy's on forms and rosters and will need correcting fairly often.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Atlas
Feminine · Greek roots · #1478 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Atlass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Atlas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Atlas in 2025?
- Atlas ranks #1478 among US girl names in 2025, with 145 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Atlas?
- About 1 in every 11,085 US girls born in 2025 was named Atlas — 145 in all.
- Will my child share the name Atlas with classmates?
- Atlas will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Atlas
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hosanna#1478 · Nathalie#1478 · Cattaleya#1478 · Verity#1478 · Wyatt#1478 · Lakyn#1484 · Dove#1484 · Miah#1484
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Atlas? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Atlas and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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