Haze
Masculine · “mist”
Haze is given to both — 1,232 boys and 110 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Haze rhymes with days and closes on a soft z, the same ending that carries Blaze. It is the plain English weather word — the thin, luminous mist that is not quite fog — and it has been sitting in American records far longer than its recent climb would suggest, appearing in ones and twos long before anyone thought of it as a trend.
How old is the name Haze?
Haze first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Haze is a kid of about 5 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,100 people named Haze are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Haze most popular?
Haze peaked in 2023, reaching #1380 nationally. Today it ranks #1425, 45 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Haze appears on this list:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Haze
The word haze appears in English in the seventeenth century, largely in the hands of sailors describing a sky that was neither clear nor properly thick; where the word itself came from has never been settled. As a given name it arrives by more than one route — the weather word taken directly, and Haze as a variant of the surname Hayes, which has served as an American first name for generations. The 1967 song "Purple Haze" pushed the word into popular music and kept it there. On American records the name has a long, thin line behind it, with the real wave only recently arriving.
Meaningscholars disagree
mist, or light fog
Two roads meet at this spelling. As a word name it is simply English haze, the thin mist between clear air and fog. It also stands as a respelling of the surname Hayes, and as a clipping of Hazel. The word's own etymology is genuinely unsettled — one long-standing account has it formed backwards from the adjective hazy, which shows up in seventeenth-century nautical writing about weather.
Pronouncing Haze
HAYZ
One syllable, rhyming with days. Nothing silent, nothing optional — the spelling and the sound match on first sight.
Nicknames for Haze
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 2023135 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1380reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- +23.5%126 in 2025, from 102
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.
Haze in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hazel in English — related form
- Hayes in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Utah.
Hazes among us
people named Haze are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 13,556 born in 2025 was named Haze
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 Arik test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Haze's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Arik climbed just as high around 1993, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Arik's path sketches the road Haze is walking now.
Haze is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Haze is headed
Haze looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 24% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Haze beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Haze in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable with no silent letters: an English speaker reads it correctly the first time and writes it after hearing it once.
- Sits beside Hazel and Hayes, both long-established, so the shape is already familiar to most ears.
- A word name, so its meaning is available in plain English with no explanation needed.
- Short enough to balance a long surname, and short enough that no nickname is required.
- It will regularly be heard and written as Hayes, which is the more common name of the two. Expect a lifetime of small corrections — a mild, permanent tax rather than a real problem.
- In American English the verb to haze means to harass newcomers into a group, and "in a haze" means confused. Neither is severe, but both are close enough for a schoolyard joke.
- In Nabokov's novel Lolita the girl's surname is Haze. Most people will never make the connection; readers occasionally will.
- The name's wave is very recent, so nearly everyone carrying it right now is a young child. It reads as contemporary rather than inherited, which is either exactly what you want or not.
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What they receive
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Haze
Masculine · #1425 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hazes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Haze are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Haze in 2025?
- Haze ranks #1425 among US boy names in 2025, with 126 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Haze?
- About 1 in every 13,556 US boys born in 2025 was named Haze — 126 in all.
- Will my child share the name Haze with classmates?
- Haze will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Haze
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zack#1425 · Finneas#1425 · Jessie#1425 · Jacoby#1425 · Rush#1425 · Aleksander#1425 · Dev#1425 · Orson#1425
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Haze? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Haze and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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