Hector
Masculine · Greek roots · “holding fast”
Hector is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 108,728 boys against 481 girls since 1880.
Hector is the name Homer gave to the defender of Troy, and it has been read aloud in classrooms for close to three thousand years. It traveled from Greek into medieval romance, then settled deeply into Spanish, where Héctor became an everyday name rather than a literary one. Two syllables, stress on the first, no spelling to explain in either language.
How old is the name Hector?
Hector was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Hector alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 97,000 people named Hector are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hector most popular?
Hector peaked in 1990, reaching #156 nationally. Today it ranks #409, 253 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Hector appears on these lists:
- Names with only one spelling
- Hero and god names for boys
- Spanish and Latin names with warmth
- Names ending in -or
- all guides
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
From Hektor (Greek) to Hector
The story of Hector
The name belongs first to the Iliad, composed in Greek around the eighth century BC, where Hector is the eldest son of Priam and the man who holds Troy together until Achilles kills him. Medieval Europe took him up as one of the Nine Worthies, a set of model heroes ranked alongside Alexander and Caesar, which carried the name into French, Italian and Spanish use. In Spanish it became Héctor and stopped being merely literary, and Spanish-speaking families in the United States are much of the reason it has held its place here, with its strongest showing in Texas, California and Florida. In the Scottish Highlands, separately, English speakers used Hector as a stand-in for the Gaelic Eachann, so the same spelling arrived by a second road.
Meaning
holding fast, steadfast
From the Greek Hektor, built on the verb ekhein, to hold or hold fast.
How the name formed
- HektorGreek
- HectorLatin, French
- HéctorSpanish
- HeitorPortuguese
Related forms: Héctor · Ettore · Heitor · Hector · Hektor · Eachann
Pronouncing Hector
HEK-ter
In Spanish, Héctor is EK-tor with a silent h and the stress still on the first syllable. Both readings are standard; households that use both often simply switch.
Nicknames for Hector
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
- 20072,243 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #156reached in 1990
- Change vs 2022
- −16.0%779 in 2025, from 927
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.
Hector in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Héctor in Spanish — spelling variant
- Ettore in Italian — same name
- Heitor in Portuguese — same name
- Hector in French — same name
- Hektor in Greek — transliteration
- Eachann in Scottish Gaelic — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Hectors among us
people named Hector are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,193 born in 2025 was named Hector
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 Stacy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Hector's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stacy climbed just as high around 1968, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stacy's path sketches the road Hector is walking now.
Hector 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 Hector is headed
Hector 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.
Hector beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hector in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One spelling works in English and Spanish alike — only the accent mark on Héctor changes, and nobody needs it spelled out.
- Documented continuously since Homer, which puts it outside the reach of any single fashion.
- Familiar in most of the world through Ettore, Heitor and Héctor, so it travels without translation.
- Two clear syllables with the stress in front, easy to call across a yard.
- English has a verb to hector, meaning to bully or browbeat. It comes from the name, by way of seventeenth-century London street gangs who styled themselves after the hero. Most people never make the connection, but a reader or teacher occasionally will.
- In the Iliad, Hector is the most sympathetic figure in the poem and also the one who loses. If your family knows the story well, the name carries that ending with it.
- The English and Spanish pronunciations differ enough that a child may spend some years correcting people in one direction or the other — a small, lifelong bit of admin rather than a problem.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Hector to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Hector? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Hector
Masculine · Greek roots · #409 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hectors are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 97,000 people named Hector are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hector in 2025?
- Hector ranks #409 among US boy names in 2025, with 779 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hector?
- About 1 in every 2,193 US boys born in 2025 was named Hector — 779 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hector with classmates?
- Hector will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hector
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eduardo#410 · Koda#410 · Remy#408 · Rhys#410 · Augustus#407 · Leandro#406 · King#405 · Hank#413
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hector? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hector and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Or jump into a head-to-head
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle