Conner
Masculine · “from Irish Conchobhar”
Conner is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 56,395 boys against 867 girls since 1880. See Conner as a girl name
Conner is the Irish Connor with its second vowel swapped, and behind both stands Conchobhar, one of the oldest names still in ordinary use in Ireland — carried into English through the surname O'Connor and the kings of Connacht it belonged to. It says itself the moment anyone sees it: two beats, hard consonants, no ambiguity. It rose steadily through the last century and is now easing back, familiar to almost everyone without crowding a classroom.
How old is the name Conner?
Conner first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Conner alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 55,500 people named Conner are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Conner most popular?
Conner peaked in 2005, reaching #127 nationally. Today it ranks #864, 737 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Where it comes from
From Conchobhar to Conner
The story of Conner
The name begins as Conchobhar in early Ireland, borne in the Ulster Cycle by Conchobar mac Nessa, the king at the center of the Táin Bó Cúailnge — a literary figure rather than a documented one, but the reason the name stayed in circulation for centuries. Real medieval kings of Connacht carried it too, and their descendants became the Ó Conchobhair family, anglicized as O'Connor, which is how the name crossed into English-speaking use as a surname first. From there it came back round as a given name in the twentieth century, mostly in the Connor spelling, with Conner following close behind. An unrelated English surname Conner also exists, from the medieval office of the ale-conner, the town officer who tested the quality of ale.
Meaningscholars disagree
from Irish Conchobhar, read either as 'lover of hounds' or 'desirous of counsel'
The first element is generally taken as Old Irish 'cú/con', hound or wolf-hound. The second is where scholars part: one reading takes 'cobhar' as desiring or aiding, giving 'hound-lover' or 'wolf-lover'; another connects it to counsel or will, giving something like 'desiring counsel'. Both are serious, long-standing readings, and neither has pushed the other out.
How the name formed
- Conchobhar
- Ó Conchobhair
- O'Connor
- Connor
- Conner
Related forms: Conchobhar · Conchúr · Connor · Conor · Konnor · Conchobhar
Pronouncing Conner
KON-er
Stress on the first syllable, rhyming with honor. Identical in sound to Connor and Conor, which is convenient for saying and inconvenient for spelling.
Nicknames for Conner
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
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 20043,005 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #127reached in 2005
- Change vs 2023
- −22.4%277 in 2025, from 357
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.
Conner in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Conchobhar in Irish — same name
- Conchúr in Irish — related form
- Connor in English — spelling variant
- Conor in English / Irish — spelling variant
- Konnor in English — spelling variant
- Conchobhar in Scottish Gaelic — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Ohio.
Conners among us
people named Conner are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 6,166 born in 2025 was named Conner
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Conner
- #864
- Conner on the 2025 chart
- #627
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Conner went to 277 boys in 2025, but Konner is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 319, which makes it the 627th most-given boys’ name of the year — 237 places above the chart.
- Conner277
- Konner42
About 1 boy in 5,354 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 6,166 for Conner 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 Jermaine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Conner's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jermaine climbed just as high around 1973, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jermaine's path sketches the road Conner is walking now.
Conner 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
Where Conner is headed
Conner is easing off slowly — about 30% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Conner beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Conner in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on sight for English speakers — no one hesitates over how to say it.
- Sits on a name-line documented back to early medieval Ireland, through the O'Connor surname.
- Recognizable across Ireland, Britain, Australia and North America in one spelling or another.
- Has real short forms already in use — Con, Conn — rather than ones that must be invented.
- Connor is the more common spelling by a wide margin, so this one gets corrected, autocorrected and second-guessed. Expect to spell it aloud fairly often, and expect mail addressed to Connor.
- The name climbed and fell within roughly one generation's span, so it reads as belonging to a particular stretch of years to anyone who tracks such things — a quality it shares with most names that had a strong run.
- The first syllable is the word 'con', which older children eventually notice. It rarely goes further than a passing joke, but it is there.
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What they receive
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Conner
Masculine · #864 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Conners are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 55,500 people named Conner are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Conner?
- Conner is the most-used spelling in US records — 277 of the 319 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Konner.
- How popular is the name Conner in 2025?
- Conner ranks #864 among US boy names in 2025, with 277 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Conner?
- About 1 in every 6,166 US boys born in 2025 was named Conner — 277 in all.
- Will my child share the name Conner with classmates?
- Conner will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Conner
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jesiah#864 · Zev#864 · Stanley#863 · Lance#862 · Alessio#867 · Edison#867 · Brycen#867 · Carlo#867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Conner? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Conner and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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