Camilo
Masculine · Latin roots
Camilo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Latin Camillus, the Roman word for the freeborn boy who carried the sacred vessels at a sacrifice. Saint Camillus de Lellis, the sixteenth-century Italian priest who founded an order to nurse the sick, carried it into the Catholic world, and Spanish has kept it at home ever since. Three open vowels and the weight in the middle: kah-MEE-loh.
How old is the name Camilo?
Camilo first appears in US birth records in 1909 — 116 years ago. The typical Camilo is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 8,400 people named Camilo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Camilo most popular?
Camilo peaked in 2022, reaching #451 nationally. Today it ranks #585, 134 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Camilo appears on these lists:
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
From camillus (Latin, ritual attendant) to Camilo
The story of Camilo
Camillus began as a Roman family name — most famously that of the gens Furia — built on an ordinary Latin word for the boy who assisted a priest at a sacrifice. Virgil gave the feminine form its literary life in the Aeneid, where Camilla is the swift-footed Volscian warrior; the masculine line stayed quieter until Saint Camillus de Lellis, founder of the nursing order later called the Camillians, made it a devotional name across Catholic Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From Italian Camillo it passed into Spanish and Portuguese as Camilo, and from Spain it traveled to the Americas, where it has been steadily used in Colombia, Cuba, Chile and Mexico. In the United States it has been on the books for well over a century, arriving with Spanish-speaking families long before it began its recent climb.
Meaning
young attendant at a religious rite; acolyte
That is what the Latin word camillus meant to Romans, and it is the direct source of the name. Where the Latin word itself came from is not recovered — it looks pre-Latin, and Etruscan is the usual suggestion, but no one has proved it.
How the name formed
- camillusLatin, ritual attendant
- Camillus
- Camillo
- Camilo
Related forms: Camillo · Camillus · Camille · Kamil · Camil · Camil
Pronouncing Camilo
kah-MEE-loh
Stress on the middle syllable in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian alike. English speakers sometimes try CAM-ih-lo on first sight; one correction usually settles it.
Nicknames for Camilo
High
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
- 1909
- Most boys named
- 2023629 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #451reached in 2022
- Change vs 2023
- −20.0%503 in 2025, from 629
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.
Camilo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Camillo in Italian — same name
- Camillus in Latin — same name
- Camille in French — related form
- Kamil in Polish — related form
- Camil in Catalan — same name
- Camil in Romanian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Camilos among us
people named Camilo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 3,396 born in 2025 was named Camilo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Camilo
- #585
- Camilo on the 2025 chart
- #480
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Camilo went to 503 boys in 2025, but Kamilo, Camillo and Kamylo are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 566, which makes it the 480th most-given boys’ name of the year — 105 places above the chart.
- Camilo503
- Kamilo38
- Camillo17
- Kamylo8
About 1 boy in 3,018 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,396 for Camilo 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 Ottis test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Camilo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ottis climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ottis's path sketches the road Camilo is walking now.
Camilo 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 Camilo is headed
Camilo looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 35% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Camilo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Camilo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in Spanish, and phonetic enough in English that most people read it correctly on the second try.
- Works unchanged in Spanish, Portuguese and (as Camillo) Italian, with close cousins in French, Polish and Romanian.
- Two ready-made short forms in real use — Cami at home, Milo among English speakers.
- An unbroken line from Roman ritual vocabulary through a named Catholic saint to present-day Latin America.
- Uncommon in American classrooms while remaining instantly recognizable to Spanish-speaking ears.
- Camila is far more familiar to American ears, and the two differ by one letter. Expect a certain number of forms, rosters and emails that turn Camilo into Camila until someone catches it.
- Because Camille is largely a girl's name in French and English, some people meet Camilo assuming a feminine name. It clears up fast, but it will come up.
- The name is climbing rather than holding steady, so a Camilo born now may meet more namesakes at eighteen than at eight — still nothing close to a crowded classroom.
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What they receive
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Camilo
Masculine · Latin roots · #585 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Camilos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,400 people named Camilo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Camilo?
- Camilo is the most-used spelling in US records — 503 of the 566 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kamilo, Camillo and Kamylo.
- How popular is the name Camilo in 2025?
- Camilo ranks #585 among US boy names in 2025, with 503 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Camilo?
- About 1 in every 3,396 US boys born in 2025 was named Camilo — 503 in all.
- Will my child share the name Camilo with classmates?
- Camilo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Camilo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eliel#585 · Moises#587 · Cassius#582 · Rayan#588 · Kyren#582 · Atreus#582 · Seth#581 · Vicente#589
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Camilo? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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