Gregory
Feminine · “watchful”
Gregory is given to boys far more often — 711,893 boys against 2,860 girls since 1880. See Gregory as a boy name
A pope saw English children in a Roman slave market, asked who they were, and sent a mission to convert their country. Whether the story is true or a good line invented afterwards, the mission was real, it arrived in Kent, and England has been named after those children in the telling ever since.
How old is the name Gregory?
Gregory first appears in US birth records in 1929 — 96 years ago. The typical Gregory alive today was born around 1970, making them about 55 years old. About 2,600 people named Gregory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gregory most popular?
Gregory peaked in 1967, reaching #1103 nationally. See the whole 1967 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Gregorios to Gregory
The story of Gregory
Gregory the Great sent Augustine and a party of monks to England at the end of the sixth century, gave them detailed and unusually practical instructions about not destroying the local temples but reusing them, and corresponded with them at length afterwards. The mission worked. More popes have taken this name than almost any other, which is a measure of how the office regarded him, and the name spread through every part of Christendom — east and west alike, which very few names managed after the churches split. The English form is a straightforward borrowing of the Latin, and it has been in use since the Middle Ages.
Meaning
watchful
The Greek verb means to be awake or alert, and the name was a Christian one from the start — a instruction rather than a description, taken from the injunction to stay awake.
How the name formed
- Gregorios
- Gregorius
- Gregory
Related forms: Gregorio · Gregorio · Grigori · Grigor · Gregor
Pronouncing Gregory
GREG-ur-ee
Three syllables with the weight at the front. Italian and Spanish give it four with the stress on the third.
Nicknames for Gregory
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
- 1929
- Most girls named
- 196189 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1103reached in 1967
- Change vs 2007
- 0.0%5 in 2012, 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.
Gregory in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gregorio in Italian — same name
- Gregorio in Spanish — same name
- Grigori in Russian — transliteration
- Grigor in Armenian — same name
- Gregor in German — same name
Gregorys among us
people named Gregory 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
Gregory 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 has a form in every European language, eastern and western alike.
- Greg is one of the most established short forms in English.
- The meaning is short, positive and easy to explain.
- It has an unbroken run in American records from the first year they were kept.
- It is strongly associated with the middle of the twentieth century in America.
- Gregory and Gregorio will both be offered in bilingual settings.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of girls, though it reads overwhelmingly as a boy's name.
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What they receive
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Gregory
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Gregorys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,600 people named Gregory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gregory in 2025?
- Gregory is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Gregory with classmates?
- Gregory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
Grace#38 · Gloria#654 · Gladys#3211 · Geraldine#2438 · Gail#8362 · Gertrude#6546 · Georgia#99 · Gina#2076
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gregory? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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