Avis
Masculine · “bird on the Latin reading”
Avis is given to both — 818 boys and 17,224 girls since 1880. See Avis as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Avis looks like the Latin word for a bird, and that is the reading nearly everyone reaches for. The name's actual road into English is older and less tidy. It arrived with the Normans in a Germanic form, and the Latin bird attached itself centuries later, once the two spellings had met on the page.
How old is the name Avis?
Avis first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Avis alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 500 people named Avis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Avis most popular?
Avis peaked in 1913, reaching #1676 nationally. See the whole 1913 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aveza to Avis
The story of Avis
Medieval English records hold the name as Aveza, Avicia and Avice, brought over by Norman families after the Conquest and common enough by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to turn up in parish registers, wills and land rolls. Avice then wore down to Avis, dropping the c that the longer spelling had carried, and by the time anyone thought to explain the result, the Latin word for a bird was sitting there looking exactly like an answer. It is a good story and it is probably the wrong one. The name kept going regardless, steady in England and then in America, and it is one of very few medieval English women's names that never entirely went out of use.
Meaningscholars disagree
bird on the Latin reading; the Norman name behind it has no recovered sense
Two readings compete. The Latin avis, a bird and the root of aviary and aviation, is the one everybody knows and the one the spelling invites. The documented line, though, runs back through Avice and Aveza to a Norman-French rendering of a Germanic name whose meaning has not been recovered. The Latin reading is a later fit rather than a derivation, which has never stopped it being how most bearers understood their own name.
How the name formed
- Aveza
- Avicia
- Avice
- Avis
Related forms: Avice
Pronouncing Avis
AY-viss
Two syllables, stress in front, the s crisp rather than buzzed. Nobody hesitates over it on the page.
Nicknames for Avis
Limited
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 192117 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1676reached in 1913
- Change vs 2019
- 0.0%5 in 2023, from 5
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.
Avis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Avice in French — related form
Aviss among us
people named Avis 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
Avis 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 has an unbroken documented history in English going back to the Norman period, which very few short women's names can claim.
- Two syllables, spelled as it sounds, and read correctly at first sight by everyone.
- The bird reading, late fit though it is, is a pleasant thing to carry and is not going anywhere.
- A car rental company has owned the word in American minds for two generations, and that is the first association most people will offer.
- This spelling goes mostly to girls but is recorded for boys as well, so a boy named Avis will meet the occasional wrong box on a form.
- In the United States it reads as a name of an older generation, which is either the appeal or the obstacle.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Avis to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Avis
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Aviss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Avis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Avis in 2025?
- Avis is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Avis with classmates?
- Avis 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 Avis? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Avis and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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