Glen
Masculine · “a narrow valley”
Glen is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 125,706 boys against 1,348 girls since 1880. See Glen as a girl name
Glen with one n is the landscape word and Glenn with two is the surname. The Gaelic word for a narrow valley came into English unchanged and undoubled; the Scottish and Irish families who took their name from one wrote it with the extra letter, and the two spellings have been quietly marking that difference ever since.
How old is the name Glen?
Glen was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Glen alive today was born around 1951, making them about 74 years old. About 67,000 people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Glen most popular?
Glen peaked in 1931, reaching #112 nationally. Today it ranks #2020, 1,908 places below that high. See the whole 1931 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Gaelic word for a narrow valley to Glen
The story of Glen
The valleys the word names were emptied. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the population of the Highland glens was cleared off the land, first for sheep and later for deer, in a process that ran for well over a century and left the interior of a whole country empty of the people who had farmed it. What survived is the names. Every glen on the map still carries the name it had, and a great many of them now name nothing but a valley: the townships are foundations in the heather, the parishes were dissolved, and the people are in Nova Scotia and North Carolina. The word traveled with them, which is why it is a first name in America at all.
Meaning
a narrow valley
The Gaelic word means a valley of a particular shape: narrow, steep-sided and usually with a burn running through it. The reading is settled. Whether a given bearer's name descends from the word directly or from the surname built on it cannot be told from the certificate, and the doubling is the only clue there is.
How the name formed
- A Gaelic word for a narrow valley
- Borrowed into English without translation
- A surname taken from the landscape
- Glen as an American first name for both sexes
Related forms: Gleann · Gleann
Pronouncing Glen
GLEN
One syllable, and identical to the ordinary English word. The Gaelic original has a longer vowel and a doubled n on the page, neither of which survived the crossing into English.
Nicknames for Glen
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19572,924 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #112reached in 1931
- Change vs 2022
- +2.8%74 in 2025, from 72
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.
Glen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gleann in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Gleann in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Glens among us
people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 23,082 born in 2025 was named Glen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Glen
- #2020
- Glen on the 2025 chart
- #731
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Glen went to 74 boys in 2025, but Glenn is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 198, which makes it the 731st most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,289 places above the chart.
- Glenn124
- Glen74
About 1 boy in 8,627 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 23,082 for Glen itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Hubert test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Glen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hubert climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hubert's path sketches the road Glen is walking now.
Glen 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 Glen is headed
Glen should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Glen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Glen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, no ambiguity, and nothing at all to teach anybody.
- The meaning is concrete and can be pointed at on any map of Scotland.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- The doubled spelling is commoner and this will be written that way.
- It is strongly associated with the middle of the twentieth century.
- The meaning is a landscape feature rather than a quality.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Glen
Masculine · #2020 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Glens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 67,000 people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Glen?
- Glen is one of 2 recorded spellings. Glenn is the more common one — 124 births in 2025 against 74 for Glen.
- How popular is the name Glen in 2025?
- Glen ranks #2020 among US boy names in 2025, with 74 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Glen?
- About 1 in every 23,082 US boys born in 2025 was named Glen — 74 in all.
- Will my child share the name Glen with classmates?
- Glen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Glen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lemuel#2020 · Kyan#2020 · Joah#2020 · Leviticus#2020 · Basil#2020 · Rigoberto#2020 · Domingo#2020 · Aaryan#2020
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Glen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Glen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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