Gustavo
Masculine
Gustavo is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 40,357 boys against 104 girls since 1880.
Gustavo is the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian shape of a name that began in the north: Gustav, worn by Swedish kings from the sixteenth century onward and carried across Europe in its Latin dress, Gustavus. Four syllables that land squarely on the second, it is the kind of name that sounds finished when someone calls it across a room.
How old is the name Gustavo?
Gustavo first appears in US birth records in 1911 — 114 years ago. The typical Gustavo alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 38,000 people named Gustavo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gustavo most popular?
Gustavo peaked in 2000, reaching #260 nationally. Today it ranks #625, 365 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Where it comes from
From Gautstafr to Gustavo
The story of Gustavo
The oldest form is Scandinavian — Gustav, a Swedish royal name from the sixteenth century, Latinized for European chanceries and battlefield dispatches as Gustavus. That Latin form is what traveled: it gave French Gustave, German and Swedish Gustav, and, in the Romance languages, Gustavo. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian all took the same spelling, which is why the name reads as fully at home in Mexico City, in São Paulo and in Milan. In the United States it has been recorded since the early twentieth century and has never gone away.
Meaningscholars disagree
most often read as "staff of the Goths"
Two serious readings compete for the Old Norse original. One takes it from the elements Gautr, meaning a Goth, and stafr, a staff or support. The other traces it back to the Slavic name Gostislav, built from words for guest and glory. Neither has won the argument, and the name is older than the records that would settle it.
How the name formed
- Gautstafr
- Gustav
- Gustavus
- Gustave
- Gustavo
Related forms: Gustav · Gustave · Gustavus · Gustaw · Kustaa · Gösta
Pronouncing Gustavo
goo-STAH-voh
Three syllables in Spanish and Portuguese, stress in the middle. English speakers sometimes shift it to guh-STAH-voh, which passes without trouble; the version to correct early is GUS-tuh-voh, with the weight on the front.
Nicknames for Gustavo
High
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
- 1911
- Most boys named
- 20001,290 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #260reached in 2000
- Change vs 2023
- +3.0%447 in 2025, from 434
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.
Gustavo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gustav in Swedish — same name
- Gustave in French — same name
- Gustavus in Latin — same name
- Gustaw in Polish — same name
- Kustaa in Finnish — related form
- Gösta in Swedish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Gustavos among us
people named Gustavo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 3,821 born in 2025 was named Gustavo
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 Phil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Gustavo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Phil climbed just as high around 1947, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Phil's path sketches the road Gustavo is walking now.
Gustavo 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 Gustavo is headed
Gustavo 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.
Gustavo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gustavo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One spelling in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, so it crosses borders without being rewritten or re-explained.
- Documented since the sixteenth century in its northern form and continuously on US records since the early twentieth.
- Ready-made short forms at both ends: Tavo in Spanish, Gus in English, neither of them invented on the spot.
- Phonetic — a listener who hears it can usually spell it, and a reader who sees it can usually say it.
- Outside Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking circles, some people will default to the stress pattern of Gustav and land on GUS-tuh-voh. It is an easy correction, but one you make more than once.
- The name places a child clearly in a Hispanic and Latin American naming tradition. For many families that is exactly the point; it is worth knowing it reads that way to strangers.
- Gus, the English short form, has an older and more Anglo history of its own, so a Gustavo may find himself handed a nickname with a rather different flavor than the full name.
- He is unlikely to share it with a classmate, which means no surname initial — and also that teachers will hear it fresh each year.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Gustavo
Masculine · #625 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gustavos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 38,000 people named Gustavo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gustavo in 2025?
- Gustavo ranks #625 among US boy names in 2025, with 447 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gustavo?
- About 1 in every 3,821 US boys born in 2025 was named Gustavo — 447 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gustavo with classmates?
- Gustavo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gustavo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hassan#625 · Arturo#627 · Kylian#622 · Koen#622 · Jayceon#628 · Danny#628 · Dominick#622 · Sincere#628
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gustavo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Gustavo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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