Ginger
Feminine · “ginger root”
Ginger is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 46,218 girls against 42 boys since 1880.
Ginger is a root that traveled further than most words: Sanskrit to Greek to Latin to French to English, over two thousand years, keeping enough of its shape to still be recognizable at the end.
How old is the name Ginger?
Ginger first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Ginger alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 40,000 people named Ginger are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ginger most popular?
Ginger peaked in 1971, reaching #187 nationally. Today it ranks #3296, 3,109 places below that high. See the whole 1971 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From shringavera to Ginger
The story of Ginger
Ginger reached the Mediterranean along the spice routes and was known to Greeks and Romans as an eastern import. Its life as an English given name is twentieth-century and American: partly a spice name of the kind that also produced Cinnamon and Saffron, partly a nickname for red hair written down as a legal name, and partly a pet form of Virginia. It rose through the 1930s and 1940s and peaked around 1970.
Meaning
ginger root
From the Sanskrit shringavera, usually explained as 'horn-body' from the shape of the rhizome, through the Greek zingiberis and the Latin zingiber. English also uses the word for a shade of red hair, which is the sense many people hear first in the name. Some bearers were given it as a pet form of Virginia instead.
How the name formed
- shringavera
- zingiberis
- zingiber
- ginger
- Ginger
Related forms: Gingembre · Jengibre · Zenzero
Pronouncing Ginger
JIN-jur
Two syllables, stress on the first, both g sounds soft. It is an ordinary English word and English speakers do not mispronounce it.
Nicknames for Ginger
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
- 1913
- Most girls named
- 19701,381 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #187reached in 1971
- Change vs 2023
- −4.1%47 in 2025, from 49
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.
Ginger in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gingembre in French — related form
- Jengibre in Spanish — related form
- Zenzero in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Gingers among us
people named Ginger are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 34,197 born in 2025 was named Ginger
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 Adele test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ginger's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Adele climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Adele's path sketches the road Ginger is walking now.
Ginger 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
Where Ginger is headed
Ginger should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Ginger beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ginger in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One of the longest documented word-journeys of any name on the chart.
- Warm and immediately familiar, with nothing to explain at introduction.
- Virginia is available as a formal form for families who want one.
- The hair-color sense is the first association for many people, and in British use it can be a taunt.
- It is an ordinary noun as well as a name, so it never reads as purely formal.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Ginger
Feminine · #3296 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gingers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 40,000 people named Ginger are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ginger in 2025?
- Ginger ranks #3296 among US girl names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ginger?
- About 1 in every 34,197 US girls born in 2025 was named Ginger — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ginger with classmates?
- Ginger will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ginger
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Neva#3296 · Aleyda#3296 · Kaylor#3296 · Nalia#3296 · Anyeli#3296 · Izabel#3296 · Esmee#3296 · Rhoda#3296
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ginger? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ginger and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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