Baker
Feminine · “one who bakes”
Baker is given to both — 748 girls and 8,234 boys since 1880. See Baker as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Baker is one of the oldest occupational surnames in English — and the feminine of it, Baxter, was a separate word for a woman who baked, which is why both survive.
How old is the name Baker?
Baker first appears in US birth records in 2007 — 18 years ago. The typical Baker is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 700 people named Baker are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Baker most popular?
Baker peaked in 2025, reaching #1652 nationally. Today it ranks #1652, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From bacan to Baker
The story of Baker
Baking was a regulated trade in medieval towns and Baker is among the commonest English surnames. Its use as a girls' given name is recent and American, part of the 2010s movement of occupational and surname names for daughters alongside Sawyer, Harper and Ryder. Baker appears in the American feminine registers from that decade.
Meaning
one who bakes
From the Old English bæcere, 'baker', from bacan, 'to bake'. The feminine form was bæcestre, which gave the surname Baxter — one of the few English words to preserve the old feminine agent suffix. Both became surnames and the meaning is undisputed.
How the name formed
- bacan
- bæcere
- Baker
Related forms: Baxter · Bäcker · Bakker
Pronouncing Baker
BAY-kur
Two syllables, stress on the first. It is a homophone of the ordinary English noun.
Nicknames for Baker
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
- 2007
- Most girls named
- 2025125 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1652reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +42.0%125 in 2025, from 88
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.
Baker in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Baxter in English — related form
- Bäcker in German — related form
- Bakker in Dutch — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Tennessee.
Bakers among us
people named Baker are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 12,858 born in 2025 was named Baker
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 Victor test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Baker's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Victor climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Victor's path sketches the road Baker is walking now.
Baker 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 Baker is headed
Baker looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 16% 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.
Baker beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Baker in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The old feminine bæcestre surviving as Baxter is a genuinely good piece of English history.
- The meaning is concrete and completely transparent.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- It reads as masculine and as a surname to most English speakers.
- It is an ordinary English occupational noun.
- It is very new as a feminine given name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Baker
Feminine · #1652 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bakers 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 Baker are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Baker in 2025?
- Baker ranks #1652 among US girl names in 2025, with 125 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Baker?
- About 1 in every 12,858 US girls born in 2025 was named Baker — 125 in all.
- Will my child share the name Baker with classmates?
- Baker will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Baker
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Abbie#1652 · Royal#1652 · Hailie#1652 · Adilene#1652 · Stacy#1652 · Leilah#1652 · Aylen#1652 · Jurnee#1652
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Baker? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Baker and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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