Curtis
Masculine · “courteous”
Curtis is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 260,554 boys against 2,322 girls since 1880. See Curtis as a girl name
Curtis is a surname that arrived by two roads, and they do not agree about the man they were describing. One is curteis, courteous, a compliment about manners. The other is curt hose, short stockings, a joke about the length of a man's legs. Both are documented, and no living Curtis can tell which one his family took.
How old is the name Curtis?
Curtis was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Curtis alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 179,000 people named Curtis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Curtis most popular?
Curtis peaked in 1963, reaching #72 nationally. Today it ranks #984, 912 places below that high. See the whole 1963 chart.
Curtis appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From curteis to Curtis
The story of Curtis
The mocking sense has a famous bearer. Robert Curthose was the eldest son of William the Conqueror, and the nickname came from the shortness of his legs, which nobody around him let him forget. He inherited Normandy but not England, spent decades at war with his own brothers, went on the First Crusade and by all accounts fought well there, came home, and lost everything at Tinchebray in 1106 to his youngest brother. He was then held prisoner for the twenty-eight years that remained of his life, outliving the brother who captured him. Every chronicle that mentions him uses the nickname, so a jibe about a man's trousers became the name history filed him under, and one branch of the modern surname descends from exactly that kind of joke.
Meaningscholars disagree
courteous, or short in the leg
The commoner derivation is from Anglo-Norman curteis, refined or well-mannered. The second, less common but well attested, is a nickname from Old French for short hose. Surname scholarship records both and cannot separate the families that carry each.
How the name formed
- curteis
- Curtis
- Kurtis
Related forms: Courtois
Pronouncing Curtis
KUR-tiss
Two syllables with the stress at the front and no ambiguity anywhere in it. The spelling and the sound agree completely, which is rarer than it sounds.
Nicknames for Curtis
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
- 19635,376 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #72reached in 1963
- Change vs 2022
- −23.2%232 in 2025, from 302
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.
Curtis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Courtois in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Curtiss among us
people named Curtis are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,362 born in 2025 was named Curtis
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Curtis
- #984
- Curtis on the 2025 chart
- #660
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Curtis went to 232 boys in 2025, but Kurtis is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 279, which makes it the 660th most-given boys’ name of the year — 324 places above the chart.
- Curtis232
- Kurtis47
About 1 boy in 6,122 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,362 for Curtis 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 Allen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Curtis's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Allen climbed just as high around 1940, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Allen's path sketches the road Curtis is walking now.
Curtis 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 Curtis is headed
Curtis is easing off slowly — about 17% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High 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.
Curtis beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Curtis in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has held a continuous place in American use since records began, without ever being faddish.
- The spelling is unambiguous and never needs repeating.
- Curt is a ready short form that arrives without being invented.
- Its peak generation is close enough to give the name a clear age to most ears.
- Curt as an ordinary English word means brusque, which is not the association most parents want.
- The record holds girls as well, and the girl is now much the smaller side.
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What they receive
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Curtis
Masculine · #984 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Curtiss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 179,000 people named Curtis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Curtis?
- Curtis is the most-used spelling in US records — 232 of the 279 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kurtis.
- How popular is the name Curtis in 2025?
- Curtis ranks #984 among US boy names in 2025, with 232 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Curtis?
- About 1 in every 7,362 US boys born in 2025 was named Curtis — 232 in all.
- Will my child share the name Curtis with classmates?
- Curtis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Curtis
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Joan#984 · Dominik#984 · Anders#984 · Ameer#980 · Ephraim#988 · Isael#988 · Byron#980 · Damir#980
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Curtis? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Curtis and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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