Cicero
Masculine · “chickpea”
Cicero means chickpea. An ancestor was said to have had a wart on his nose the shape of one, and when friends advised the young orator to drop the ridiculous name he refused, and said he would make it more famous than any noble family's. He was right, which is the annoying part.
How old is the name Cicero?
Cicero was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Cicero alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 300 people named Cicero are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cicero most popular?
Cicero peaked in 1881, reaching #395 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 11,613 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From cicer to Cicero
The story of Cicero
Roman cognomina were frequently insults that had become hereditary, and the Tullii Cicerones were stuck with a vegetable. Plutarch records the advice to change it and the refusal. What followed justified the confidence: he became the greatest orator in Rome, was consul, was executed in the proscriptions of 43 BC, and left about nine hundred letters that were never intended for publication. Those letters are the single richest source anyone has for the politics of the late Republic — they show the machinery working, and the anxiety, in a way no history does. His prose then became the model for written Latin for two thousand years, which is why Ciceronian is still a word for a particular kind of long, balanced sentence.
Meaning
chickpea
Latin cicer, a chickpea, used as a Roman cognomen — a hereditary nickname attached to a branch of a family. The story about the ancestor's nose is recorded by Plutarch and is the standard explanation. It is not flattering and was not meant to be.
How the name formed
- cicer
- Cicero
Related forms: Cicerone
Pronouncing Cicero
SIS-uh-roh
Three syllables, stress on the first, in English. Classical Latin said KEE-keh-roh, with hard c's, and Italian says chee-che-ROH-neh for the derived word. All three are correct in their own system.
Nicknames for Cicero
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 191936 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #395reached in 1881
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
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.
Cicero in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cicerone in Italian — related form
Ciceros among us
people named Cicero are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Cicero
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Cicero 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
Cicero beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cicero in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented meaning and a documented bearer whose own words survive in quantity.
- Three syllables with a clear opening stress.
- It is genuinely rare, so a child will almost certainly never meet another.
- It means chickpea, which is either the best story on this page or a problem.
- Very few people carry it now and almost all of them are old.
- It is also a town in Illinois, which is what a search will return.
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What they receive
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Cicero
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ciceros are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Cicero are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cicero in 2025?
- Cicero ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cicero?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Cicero — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cicero with classmates?
- Cicero will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cicero
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Willam#12008 · Solon#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cicero? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cicero and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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