Blair
Feminine · “plain”
Blair is given to both — 23,267 girls and 15,009 boys since 1880. See Blair as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Blair began as a piece of Scottish landscape — the flat open ground named in Gaelic as blàr, which gave its name to places like Blairgowrie and Blair Atholl, then to the families who came from them. It is one clean syllable that rhymes with air, spelled the way it sounds, and it has been crossing back and forth between surname and first name for well over a century.
How old is the name Blair?
Blair first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Blair is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 23,000 people named Blair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Blair most popular?
Blair peaked in 2025, reaching #169 nationally. Today it ranks #169, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From blàr (Scottish Gaelic: plain, field) to Blair
The story of Blair
The word blàr described level, treeless ground, and it stuck to dozens of Scottish places before it stuck to any person. Families who held or came from those places — Blair Atholl in Perthshire among them — carried the name south and then across the Atlantic. In America the Scottish surname followed the well-worn path of Bruce, Douglas and Ross into the first-name column, used for boys at first and then, over the twentieth century, increasingly for girls. Its recent wave among girls owes a good deal to Blair Waldorf of the Gossip Girl novels and television series.
Meaning
plain, field
From Scottish Gaelic blàr. The same word carries the sense of 'battlefield' — an open field being where battles were fought — so both readings trace to one root rather than competing.
How the name formed
- blàrScottish Gaelic: plain, field
- BlairScottish place name
- BlairScottish surname
- Blairgiven name
Related forms: Blàr · Blaire
Pronouncing Blair
BLAIR
One syllable, rhyming with air and hair. Rarely misheard, though it is sometimes written Blaire.
Nicknames for Blair
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 20251,806 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #169reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +42.9%1,806 in 2025, from 1,264
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.
Blair in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Blàr in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Blaire in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Blairs among us
people named Blair are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 890 born in 2025 was named Blair
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 Robyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Blair's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Robyn climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Robyn's path sketches the road Blair is walking now.
Blair 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 Blair is headed
Blair looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 24% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
High 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.
Blair beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Blair in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, phonetic, and spelled the way an English speaker would guess — little correcting over a lifetime.
- A documented Scottish surname and place name going back centuries, so the name rests on real history rather than a recent coinage.
- Recognized across the English-speaking world, where Scottish surnames as first names are a long-standing habit.
- Complete as it stands, needing no nickname, while still allowing informal ones at home.
- Short enough to sit easily beside long surnames and multi-syllable middle names.
- Blair is used for boys as well as girls, and always has been. On paper, before anyone meets her, readers may guess either way — worth knowing rather than worrying about.
- The Blaire spelling exists and is common enough that people will occasionally add the e. A quick correction, but a lifelong one.
- In Britain the name reads first as a surname, thanks to a former prime minister; that association is much fainter in the United States.
- The name is climbing right now, so it is likely to be more familiar in a decade than it is in this year's playgrounds — still nowhere near crowded, but not the rarity it once was.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Blair
Feminine · #169 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Blairs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 23,000 people named Blair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Blair in 2025?
- Blair ranks #169 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,806 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Blair?
- About 1 in every 890 US girls born in 2025 was named Blair — 1,806 in all.
- Will my child share the name Blair with classmates?
- Blair will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Blair
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Gemma#170 · Ailani#168 · Skylar#167 · Rosalie#171 · Vivienne#172 · Isabelle#166 · Nevaeh#165 · Ruth#173
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Blair? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Blair and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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