Cruze
Masculine · “cross”
Cruze is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 861 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Cruze is a respelling of Cruz, the Spanish word for a cross. It is one of the small group of Spanish devotional words — Cruz, Jesús, Consuelo, Rosario — that became personal names, and it is among the most traveled of them.
How old is the name Cruze?
Cruze first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Cruze is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 900 people named Cruze are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cruze most popular?
Cruze peaked in 2013, reaching #1794 nationally. Today it ranks #3181, 1,387 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From crux to Cruze
The story of Cruze
Spanish and Portuguese Catholic naming drew freely on devotional words and Marian titles, and Cruz has been used as a given name and a surname across the Spanish-speaking world for centuries — for women as often as for men in Spain. In America it arrived first as a surname and later as a given name, and the Cruze spelling is a recent addition, adding an e that changes nothing you can hear and makes the word look less like the Spanish noun.
Meaning
cross
From Latin crux, a cross; Spanish took it as cruz, and the name comes from the devotional use of the word rather than from the object itself.
How the name formed
- crux
- Cruz
- Cruze
Related forms: Cruz · Cruz · Croce
Pronouncing Cruze
KROOZ
One syllable, rhyming with cruise. Spanish gives the z a softer, s-like sound in most of Latin America.
Nicknames for Cruze
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
- 1989
- Most boys named
- 201380 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1794reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- −7.5%37 in 2025, from 40
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.
Cruze in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cruz in Spanish — spelling variant
- Cruz in Portuguese — same name
- Croce in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Ohio, Kansas.
Cruzes among us
people named Cruze are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 46,164 born in 2025 was named Cruze
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cruze
- #3181
- Cruze on the 2025 chart
- #855
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cruze went to 37 boys in 2025, but Kruze and Cruse are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 73, which makes it the 855th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,326 places above the chart.
- Cruze37
- Kruze30
- Cruse6
About 1 boy in 23,398 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 46,164 for Cruze 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 Demar test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cruze's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Demar climbed just as high around 1978, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Demar's path sketches the road Cruze is walking now.
Cruze 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 Cruze is headed
Cruze should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. 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.
Cruze beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cruze in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled, concrete meaning that needs no research to explain.
- One syllable and five letters, easy to write and impossible to mispronounce.
- It has centuries of documented Spanish use behind the sound.
- Cruz is by far the standard spelling and this one will be corrected on most forms.
- In English it is a homophone of cruise, which will be noticed.
- In Spain the name is traditionally given to women, which is worth knowing.
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What they receive
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Cruze
Masculine · #3181 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cruzes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Cruze are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cruze?
- Cruze is the most-used spelling in US records — 37 of the 73 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kruze and Cruse.
- How popular is the name Cruze in 2025?
- Cruze ranks #3181 among US boy names in 2025, with 37 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cruze?
- About 1 in every 46,164 US boys born in 2025 was named Cruze — 37 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cruze with classmates?
- Cruze will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cruze
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Diamond#3181 · Walden#3181 · Tobin#3181 · Keion#3181 · Artem#3181 · Arsh#3181 · Kris#3181 · Esau#3181
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cruze? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cruze 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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