Attila
Masculine · “little father”
Nobody knows what Attila was called. The name we use is Gothic, not Hunnic: atta means father and -ila makes it small, so Attila is little father, which is what his Gothic-speaking subjects called him. His own name has not survived.
How old is the name Attila?
Attila first appears in US birth records in 1958 — 67 years ago. The typical Attila alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 600 people named Attila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Attila most popular?
Attila peaked in 1968, reaching #2030 nationally. Today it ranks #6803, 4,773 places below that high. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From atta to Attila
The story of Attila
Attila ruled the Hunnic empire from 434 to 453, invaded Gaul and Italy, and became the standard European figure for a destroying invader; the Latin sources that describe him are hostile and are almost all we have. His court, however, was multilingual, and Gothic was widely spoken in it, which is why a Gothic form of address is what survives. In Hungary the name has an entirely different weight: Hungarians adopted the Hunnic connection as part of their national story, and Attila is a common and positive Hungarian name, carried by the poet Attila Jozsef. Its best year in United States records is 1968.
Meaningscholars disagree
little father
The best-supported derivation is Gothic atta, father, with the diminutive suffix -ila, giving little father, a respectful rather than a belittling form. A Turkic derivation from a word for the Volga has been proposed and is not well supported. What is generally agreed is that the name as recorded is Germanic, and that the Hunnic language is too poorly attested to recover anything else.
How the name formed
- atta
- Attila
Related forms: Attila · Atilla · Attila
Pronouncing Attila
AH-til-lah
Three syllables with the stress on the first in Hungarian, which holds the doubled t. English speakers usually say uh-TIL-uh with the weight in the middle.
Nicknames for Attila
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
- 1958
- Most boys named
- 200918 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2030reached in 1968
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%12 in 2025, from 12
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.
Attila in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Attila in Hungarian — same name
- Atilla in Turkish — spelling variant
- Attila in Italian — same name
Attilas among us
people named Attila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 142,340 born in 2025 was named Attila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Attila
- #6803
- Attila on the 2025 chart
- #905
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Attila went to 12 boys in 2025, but Atilla is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 23, which makes it the 905th most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,898 places above the chart.
- Attila12
- Atilla11
About 1 boy in 74,264 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 142,340 for Attila itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ascencion test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Attila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ascencion climbed just as high around 1946, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ascencion's path sketches the road Attila is walking now.
Attila 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
Attila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Attila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Gothic meaning that is unexpectedly warm.
- An ordinary and well-regarded name across Hungary and Turkey.
- Immediately recognizable everywhere.
- In Western Europe and America the historical association is entirely negative.
- Hungarian and English stress the name differently.
- The man's actual name is not recoverable.
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What they receive
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Attila
Masculine · #6803 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Attilas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Attila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Attila?
- Attila is the most-used spelling in US records — 12 of the 23 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Atilla.
- How popular is the name Attila in 2025?
- Attila ranks #6803 among US boy names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Attila?
- About 1 in every 142,340 US boys born in 2025 was named Attila — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Attila with classmates?
- Attila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Attila
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zeb#6803 · Buster#6803 · Fabien#6803 · Eston#6803 · Tyjuan#6803 · Fuad#6803 · Aaiden#6803 · Sanford#6803
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Attila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Attila and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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