Evander
Masculine · “good man”
Evander walks out of the Aeneid: in Virgil's telling he is the Arcadian who settled the hill that would become Rome, an old man welcoming Aeneas long before the city had a name. The Greek behind it, Euandros, is built from two of the most ordinary and best words that language had. Say it aloud and it arrives in three easy beats, with Evan sitting right there at the front.
How old is the name Evander?
Evander first appears in US birth records in 1888 — 137 years ago. The typical Evander is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,900 people named Evander are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Evander most popular?
Evander peaked in 2025, reaching #698 nationally. Today it ranks #698, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Evander appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Euandros to Evander
The story of Evander
The name belongs first to Greek, where Euandros was a real personal name before it was a literary one. Roman writers latinized it to Evander and gave it to the Arcadian settler of the Palatine — Virgil in the Aeneid and Livy in his history both tell the story, which made the name a fixture of the Latin classroom for centuries afterwards. It reached English partly through that classical education, and partly by a quite separate route in Scotland, where clerks writing in English used Evander for men whose Gaelic name was Iomhar. In Italian and Portuguese the same name lives on as Evandro, ordinary enough in Brazil to raise no eyebrows.
Meaningscholars disagree
good man
The Greek name Euandros is transparently eu, 'good', plus the stem of anēr, 'man' — that part is not in doubt. What is contested is how an English-speaking Evander got here. Alongside the classical line, Scots used Evander as an English stand-in for the Gaelic Iomhar, a name of Norse descent (Ívarr) with no connection to Greek at all beyond a rough similarity of sound. Two roads, one spelling.
How the name formed
- Euandros
- EvanderLatin
- Evandro
- Evander
Related forms: Euandros (Εὔανδρος) · Evander · Evandro · Evandro · Evandro · Évandre
Pronouncing Evander
ih-VAN-der
Stress lands on the middle syllable. Some families say ee-VAN-der with a fuller first vowel; both are current, and the second syllable rhymes with 'van' either way. The classical Latin would have been eh-WAN-der, which nobody uses in English.
Nicknames for Evander
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
- 1888
- Most boys named
- 2025389 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #698reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +19.7%389 in 2025, from 325
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.
Evander in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Euandros (Εὔανδρος) in Greek — transliteration
- Evander in Latin — same name
- Evandro in Italian — same name
- Evandro in Portuguese — same name
- Evandro in Spanish — same name
- Évandre in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Evanders among us
people named Evander are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 4,391 born in 2025 was named Evander
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 Orvil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Evander's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Orvil climbed just as high around 1921, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Orvil's path sketches the road Evander is walking now.
Evander is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Evander is headed
Evander looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 21% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Evander beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Evander in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two ready-made short forms, Ev and Van, both of which stand up on their own and neither of which needs explaining.
- Every syllable is already familiar in English from Evan and Alexander, so people can usually spell it after hearing it once.
- A continuous written record from Greek personal names through Virgil and Livy to the present — nothing about it was invented recently.
- Recognizable across Italian, Portuguese and Spanish as Evandro, which travels well in a Spanish-speaking country or family.
- Almost every Evander will be the only one in his school. That means no surname initial to share, but it also means a lifetime of being heard as Evan first and corrected second.
- The name's wave is very recent, so nearly everyone carrying it right now is a child. It reads as current rather than inherited, and there is no generation of grown Evanders to make it feel ordinary.
- The best-known American bearer by far is the heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, and for many adults that is the first association the name calls up. Whether that is a pleasure or a shadow is a matter of taste.
- Two pronunciations circulate, ih-VAN-der and ee-VAN-der, so he will likely spend his life choosing one and letting the other go by.
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What they receive
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Evander
Masculine · #698 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Evanders are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,900 people named Evander are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Evander in 2025?
- Evander ranks #698 among US boy names in 2025, with 389 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Evander?
- About 1 in every 4,391 US boys born in 2025 was named Evander — 389 in all.
- Will my child share the name Evander with classmates?
- Evander will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Evander
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Marvin#699 · Jayson#700 · Mac#695 · Duke#695 · Kareem#701 · Sevyn#695 · Bridger#701 · Idris#694
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Evander? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Evander and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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