Hill
Masculine · “Old English hyll”
The commonest English surnames are the simplest ones: Hill, Wood, Green, Brook, Ford, Lane and Field. They record where a family lived when surnames were being fixed, and there was one of each in nearly every village.
How old is the name Hill?
Hill first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Hill alive today was born around 1931, making them about 94 years old. About 200 people named Hill are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hill most popular?
Hill peaked in 1905, reaching #741 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,954 places below that high. See the whole 1905 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hyll to Hill
The story of Hill
English surnames became hereditary between roughly 1200 and 1400, and they came from four places: a father's name, an occupation, a nickname, and a location. The locational ones split in two. A man who came from somewhere else was named for the place he had left, which is why Preston, Hastings and Radford exist; a man who had always been there was named for the feature he lived by, and that gives the shortest and commonest surnames in the language. Every settlement had a hill, a wood, a green, a brook and a field, and each of them named a family, which is why these names are so numerous and so evenly spread. As American given names they carried the same air of plain respectability that Green and Ford did.
Meaning
Old English hyll, a hill
Hill is a topographic surname, given to someone who lived on or by a hill, from Old English hyll. It may also stand as a short form of Hillary. As a given name it belongs to the nineteenth-century American habit of using surnames; the peak is 1905.
How the name formed
- hyll
- Hill
Related forms: Hilliard
Pronouncing Hill
HIL
One syllable, said exactly like the ordinary noun.
Nicknames for Hill
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
- 1884
- Most boys named
- 191921 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #741reached in 1905
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%6 in 2025, from 6
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.
Hill in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hilliard in English — related form
Hills among us
people named Hill are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Hill
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Hill 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
Hill beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hill in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable and four letters, impossible to misspell.
- The meaning is as concrete as a name's can be.
- It works as a middle name with almost any first name.
- It is an ordinary English noun.
- It reads as a surname to almost everyone.
- The 1905 peak dates its use as a given name.
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Hill
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Hills are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Hill are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hill in 2025?
- Hill ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hill?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Hill — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hill with classmates?
- Hill will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hill
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hill? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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