Cisco
Masculine · “Latin Franciscus”
Cisco Systems is named after San Francisco, which is named after St Francis, who was named after France because his father sold cloth there. A networking company in California carries, at four removes, a thirteenth-century Italian nickname about the rag trade.
How old is the name Cisco?
Cisco first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Cisco alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 800 people named Cisco are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cisco most popular?
Cisco peaked in 1973, reaching #1817 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 7,897 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Franciscus to Cisco
The story of Cisco
The Spanish mission established on the peninsula in 1776 was dedicated to St Francis of Assisi and named Mision San Francisco de Asis; the settlement that grew round it took the name, and by the gold rush it was one of the largest cities in the West. In 1984 two Stanford staff founded a company to make multi-protocol routers and named it after the city, using the last two syllables and a logo based on the Golden Gate Bridge, and for a period around 2000 it was the most valuable company in the world. The saint's own name, as the entry for Frantz notes, was a nickname meaning the Frenchman, given because his father traded in French cloth; his baptismal name was Giovanni. So the chain runs from a cloth merchant's joke to a Californian mission to a network equipment manufacturer, with nothing lost but the meaning.
Meaning
Latin Franciscus, the Frenchman
Cisco is a Spanish familiar form of Francisco, from Latin Franciscus, meaning French or a Frank. Spanish clipping frequently takes the stressed syllable and what follows rather than the beginning, which is why Cisco is unrecognizable as a piece of Francisco to English readers. The American peak is 1973.
How the name formed
- Franciscus
- Francisco
- Cisco
Related forms: Cisco · Paco · Pancho
Pronouncing Cisco
SIS-koh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Spanish says the c before i as an s in Latin America and a th in Spain.
Nicknames for Cisco
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
- 1924
- Most boys named
- 199933 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1817reached in 1973
- Change vs 2024
- −41.7%7 in 2025, from 12
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.
Cisco in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cisco in Spanish — same name
- Paco in Spanish — related form
- Pancho in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Ciscos among us
people named Cisco are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Cisco
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 Sarkis test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cisco's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sarkis climbed just as high around 1923, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sarkis's path sketches the road Cisco is walking now.
Cisco 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
Cisco beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cisco in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Francisco is available as the formal version.
- Five letters and two syllables, easy to say.
- The vowels are open and clear.
- A very large technology company shares the name.
- It reads as a familiar form rather than a full name.
- Paco and Pancho are commoner short forms of the same parent name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Cisco
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ciscos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Cisco are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cisco in 2025?
- Cisco ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cisco?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Cisco — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cisco with classmates?
- Cisco will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cisco
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cisco? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cisco 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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