Gilman
Masculine · “The servant”
Gilman is a surname name from the oldest American layer of that habit, and its first syllable carries a word that names hundreds of Scottish and Irish families: gille, a servant or a follower, the piece of a name that tells you whose.
How old is the name Gilman?
Gilman first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Gilman alive today was born around 1931, making them about 94 years old. About 200 people named Gilman are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gilman most popular?
Gilman peaked in 1887, reaching #819 nationally. See the whole 1887 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Gille to Gilman
The story of Gilman
The bearer worth knowing is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who took the name by marriage and made it permanent. Told by a celebrated physician to rest completely, to live as domestic a life as possible and never to touch pen or brush again, she followed the prescription until she was close to collapse — then went back to work and wrote a short story about a woman confined to an upstairs room with yellow wallpaper, losing her mind by inches. She sent it to the doctor. It is now one of the most taught short stories in American literature, and the cure it describes was quietly abandoned.
Meaningscholars disagree
The servant, or the servant of a man of God
Two routes. In the Gaelic world gille means a servant or a lad, and it opens a whole class of surnames that finish by naming whom the person served: Gilchrist is Christ's servant, Gilroy the red-haired one's, Gilmore Mary's. In England a gild-man belonged to a guild. The American surname may come from either road, and the families that carried it did not keep the answer.
How the name formed
- Gille
- Gilman
Pronouncing Gilman
GIL-mun
Two syllables, stress at the front, with a hard g as in give. The second half is said as an unstressed mun, not man.
Nicknames for Gilman
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
- 1887
- Most boys named
- 191834 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #819reached in 1887
- Change vs 1980
- +20.0%6 in 1993, from 5
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.
Gilmans among us
people named Gilman are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Gilman sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is a surname name with real history behind it rather than a recent construction.
- The short form, Gil, is friendly, easy and instantly usable.
- It sounds established and unshowy, which is difficult to achieve deliberately.
- The ending will be heard as man, and he will be asked whether it is one word or two.
- It reads as a last name first, which is the trade every surname name makes.
- Its most famous bearer married into the name, so a child asked about it inherits a story rather than a lineage.
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What they receive
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Gilman
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Gilmans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Gilman are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gilman in 2025?
- Gilman is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Gilman with classmates?
- Gilman will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
George#126 · Gary#1073 · Gregory#593 · Gerald#1204 · Gabriel#37 · Glenn#1443 · Gavin#303 · Gordon#1051
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gilman? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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