Higinio
Masculine · “healthy”
Higinio is the Spanish form of a Greek name about health, and it reached American records with Mexican and Spanish families in the early twentieth century. The root it is built on gave English one of its most ordinary words by way of a goddess.
How old is the name Higinio?
Higinio first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Higinio alive today was born around 1964, making them about 61 years old. About 500 people named Higinio are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Higinio most popular?
Higinio peaked in 1945, reaching #1772 nationally. See the whole 1945 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hyginos to Higinio
The story of Higinio
Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, had daughters, and one of them was Hygieia — health personified, usually shown feeding a snake from a bowl, which is where the pharmacist's symbol comes from. Her name is the ordinary Greek adjective for healthy turned into a person, and the ancient cult treated her as the preventive half of medicine while her father handled cures. French took her name for the branch of medicine concerned with keeping people well, and English borrowed it in the eighteenth century as hygiene, at which point it meant the whole science of healthy living: air, exercise, diet, drainage. The narrowing to washing came later and is essentially Victorian. The name here is built on the same adjective, so it says of a child exactly what the goddess's name said of her.
Meaning
healthy; sound
From the Greek adjective hygies, healthy or whole, with a Latin ending. Spanish writes the h, which is silent in Spanish, and drops the y of the Greek in favor of an i. The name was carried by an early pope and by a Roman writer, and a family may have meant either.
How the name formed
- Hyginos
- Hyginus
- Higinio
Related forms: Igino · Higino · Hygin
Pronouncing Higinio
ee-HEE-nyoh
Three or four syllables depending on the speaker, with the stress in the middle. The h at the front is silent in Spanish and the g before an i is a throat sound, so an English reader gets almost none of it right on sight.
Nicknames for Higinio
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 194515 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1772reached in 1945
- Change vs 2008
- 0.0%5 in 2013, 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.
Higinio in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Igino in Italian — same name
- Higino in Portuguese — same name
- Hygin in French — same name
Higinios among us
people named Higinio 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
Higinio 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
- Gino detaches cleanly and is a complete name across several languages.
- The meaning is documented and immediately positive.
- It is genuinely rare and unmistakable once heard.
- English readers will sound the h and harden the g, producing a different name.
- Higinio, Iginio and Hyginio are all recorded and the spelling will need giving.
- Which of the two possible namesakes a family meant is not recorded.
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Higinio
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Higinios are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Higinio are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Higinio in 2025?
- Higinio is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Higinio with classmates?
- Higinio will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Henry#5 · Harold#991 · Harry#775 · Howard#1002 · Hunter#130 · Herbert#2641 · Herman#2363 · Harvey#251
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Higinio? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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