Evelyn
Masculine · “Norman French Aveline”
Evelyn is given to girls far more often — 639,756 girls against 1,906 boys since 1880. See Evelyn as a girl name
Evelyn has changed sex twice. It began as Aveline, a Norman woman's name. It became a surname, and surnames used as first names go to boys, so Evelyn became a man's name. Then the sound and the ending pulled it back to women, where it now sits.
How old is the name Evelyn?
Evelyn first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Evelyn alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 800 people named Evelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Evelyn most popular?
Evelyn peaked in 1907, reaching #778 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 8,132 places below that high. See the whole 1907 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aveline to Evelyn
The story of Evelyn
Evelyn Waugh, born in 1903, was named in the male tradition and married a woman also called Evelyn in 1928, so their friends called them He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn. That is a useful marker for the moment of transition: within Waugh's lifetime the name went from being a man's name that a woman might unusually bear to a woman's name that a man unusually bore. The mechanism is the ordinary one for English names. A surname used as a first name is initially male, because English surname-naming is a male-line practice; if the sound of the name matches the prevailing pattern for women, it drifts. Evelyn ends in an unstressed -lyn, which by the twentieth century was among the strongest female markers in English, and the drift was one-way. Names cross from male to female and stay there; they very rarely cross back.
Meaningscholars disagree
Norman French Aveline, of uncertain meaning
Evelyn comes from the Norman French woman's name Aveline, a diminutive of Ava or Avila, whose own origin is disputed and may be Germanic. Aveline became the English surname Evelyn, and the surname was then used as a man's given name from the seventeenth century. The male peak in the American data is 1907; the female use is far larger and later.
How the name formed
- Aveline
- Evelyn
Related forms: Aveline · Evelina
Pronouncing Evelyn
EV-uh-lin
Three syllables, stress on the first. British usage often says EEV-lin for the male name and EV-uh-lin for the female, a distinction American English does not make.
Nicknames for Evelyn
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
- 1900
- Most boys named
- 192640 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #778reached in 1907
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%8 in 2025, from 8
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.
Evelyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Aveline in French — related form
- Evelina in English — related form
Evelyns among us
people named Evelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Evelyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Evelyn 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
Evelyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Evelyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ev is available as a short form for either sex.
- The name has a documented history of nearly a thousand years.
- It has been in continuous use for men and women alike.
- It is now read as a woman's name almost everywhere.
- British and American pronunciations differ.
- The origin of the underlying Norman name is disputed.
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Evelyn
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Evelyns 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 Evelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Evelyn in 2025?
- Evelyn ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Evelyn?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Evelyn — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Evelyn with classmates?
- Evelyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Evelyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Evelyn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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