Fawn
Feminine · “a young deer”
Fawn names a young deer, and the word came into English from French with a much broader meaning: a faon was any young animal, and behind it is the Latin word for offspring. It became an American girls' name in the 1970s, alongside Dawn, Robin and Bambi, and its peak is 1977.
How old is the name Fawn?
Fawn first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Fawn alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 5,000 people named Fawn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Fawn most popular?
Fawn peaked in 1977, reaching #763 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 5,154 places below that high. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From fetus to Fawn
The story of Fawn
Animal names for girls have a long but narrow English history — Doe, Robin, Wren, Bambi and Fawn all belong to the twentieth century, and most of them cluster in a short period. Fawn's American career runs from the 1950s to the 1980s and peaks in 1977, in the same years as Dawn, with which it rhymes and is constantly confused. Its rise belongs to a general fashion for soft one-syllable girls' names of that period, and its fall was as quick. The color term — fawn as a light yellowish brown — comes from the animal and is a separate later development.
Meaning
a young deer
Old French faon meant a young animal of any kind, and English narrowed it to deer. The French word descends from Vulgar Latin feto, from fetus, 'offspring, bringing forth' — the same word English borrowed separately and much later as fetus. The verb to fawn, meaning to flatter, is unrelated: it comes from an Old English word about rejoicing, and the two are homophones with separate histories.
How the name formed
- fetus
- faon
- fawn
- Fawn
Related forms: Faon
Pronouncing Fawn
FAWN
One syllable, exactly as the ordinary word, rhyming with dawn and lawn. There is no ambiguity anywhere in the spelling.
Nicknames for Fawn
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 girls named
- 1981206 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #763reached in 1977
- Change vs 2023
- −13.0%20 in 2025, from 23
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.
Fawn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Faon in French — related form
Fawns among us
people named Fawn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Fawn
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 Marita test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Fawn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marita climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marita's path sketches the road Fawn is walking now.
Fawn 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
Fawn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Fawn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It never needs to be spelled, because every English speaker already writes it.
- The meaning is a single concrete image with a clean French and Latin derivation.
- It is short, soft and easy for a young child to say and write.
- It rhymes exactly with Dawn and the two are constantly confused in speech.
- The unrelated verb to fawn, meaning to flatter, is a homophone.
- Its American curve is tightly 1970s, which dates a bearer closely.
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What they receive
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Fawn
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Fawns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,000 people named Fawn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Fawn in 2025?
- Fawn ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Fawn?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Fawn — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Fawn with classmates?
- Fawn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Fawn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Klarissa#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Fawn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Fawn and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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