Gaurav
Masculine · “pride”
Guru means heavy. Sanskrit guru is an ordinary adjective for weight, and a teacher is a guru because they carry weight — the word for gravity in the physical sense and gravity in the personal sense is the same word. Latin gravis is its cousin, and so is English grave.
How old is the name Gaurav?
Gaurav first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Gaurav alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 700 people named Gaurav are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gaurav most popular?
Gaurav peaked in 1983, reaching #2272 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 9,736 places below that high. See the whole 1983 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From guru to Gaurav
The story of Gaurav
The root is one of the clearest in comparative linguistics because the descendants agree so well. Sanskrit guru is heavy; Greek barys is heavy; Latin gravis is heavy and gives gravity, grave, aggravate, grief and grieve. What Sanskrit did that the others did not is take the physical sense straight into the social one: a guru is a person of weight, and gaurava is the weight itself considered as something owed. That is a more concrete idea than the English words for it — dignity and honor are abstractions, and gaurava is a measurement. The name is the noun, given as a name, which is ordinary in Sanskrit-derived naming and rare in English.
Meaning
pride, dignity, weight
Sanskrit gaurava, the abstract noun from guru, heavy. It means the quality of carrying weight — dignity, honor, the respect owed to someone substantial. Guru, gravis, gravity, grave and grief all descend from one Indo-European root about heaviness.
How the name formed
- guru
- gaurava
- Gaurav
Related forms: Gaurav · Gaurava
Pronouncing Gaurav
GOW-rav
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the first vowel as in cow. English readers often say GORE-av, which changes the vowel; the au here is a diphthong, not a long o.
Nicknames for Gaurav
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
- 1975
- Most boys named
- 200336 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2272reached in 1983
- Change vs 2024
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
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.
Gaurav in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gaurav in Hindi — same name
- Gaurava in Sanskrit — same name
Gauravs among us
people named Gaurav are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Gaurav
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 Ulric test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Gaurav's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ulric climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ulric's path sketches the road Gaurav is walking now.
Gaurav 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
Gaurav beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gaurav in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Sanskrit meaning traceable to a root shared with English words.
- Two syllables and six letters, short for a Sanskrit name.
- It is a current, ordinary name in India rather than a revival.
- The first vowel is regularly misread by English speakers.
- Gaurav and Gourav are both transliterated, so the spelling will be queried.
- It is close to Gavin in American ears and will be misheard as it.
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What they receive
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Gaurav
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gauravs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Gaurav are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gaurav in 2025?
- Gaurav ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gaurav?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Gaurav — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gaurav with classmates?
- Gaurav will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gaurav
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gaurav? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Gaurav and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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