Humphrey
Masculine · “peaceful warrior”
Humphrey is an old Germanic name that England kept and America mostly gave up, and it has left two unusual deposits in the language: a seventeenth-century phrase for going hungry, and a twentieth-century verb for taking more than your share. Very few names manage one. Two is close to a record.
How old is the name Humphrey?
Humphrey was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Humphrey alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 500 people named Humphrey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Humphrey most popular?
Humphrey peaked in 1893, reaching #650 nationally. See the whole 1893 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Germanic compound ending in the word for peace to Humphrey
The story of Humphrey
Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the youngest son of Henry the Fourth, gave his books to Oxford and was for a while the most generous patron of learning in England; the oldest reading room in the Bodleian still carries his name. He also gave English an idiom, by accident. A tomb in old St Paul's was wrongly believed to be his, and the aisle beside it was where men without the price of a meal walked about at dinner time looking as though they had somewhere to be. To dine with Duke Humphrey meant to go without dinner, and the phrase outlived both the tomb and the cathedral, which burned in the Great Fire.
Meaningscholars disagree
peaceful warrior, or peace of the Huns
The second half is the Germanic word for peace, the same element that ends Godfrey, Geoffrey and Wilfred. The first half is disputed: it may be a word for a warrior or giant, or it may be the tribal name of the Huns, which appears in Germanic names more often than is comfortable. Either way the compound is the usual Germanic pairing of something fierce with something peaceful, which sounds contradictory to modern ears and was entirely normal to the people making these names.
How the name formed
- a Germanic compound ending in the word for peace
- brought to England by the Normans
- Duke Humphrey of Gloucester gives his books to Oxford
- to dine with Duke Humphrey enters English as an idiom
- an American film star gives the language a verb
Related forms: Humfried · Onfroi · Onofrio
Pronouncing Humphrey
HUM-free
Two syllables with the stress at the front, and the ph says f as it does in every Greek-looking word — though here it is Germanic and the spelling is a later tidying-up rather than a transliteration.
Nicknames for Humphrey
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
- 192118 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #650reached in 1893
- Change vs 2021
- +14.3%8 in 2024, from 7
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.
Humphrey in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Humfried in German — related form
- Onfroi in French — related form
- Onofrio in Italian — related form
Humphreys among us
people named Humphrey 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
Humphrey 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
- It is a genuinely old name with a documented history in England running back eight hundred years.
- The film star association is enormously favorable and shows no sign of fading.
- It is unrepeated — a boy called Humphrey will not meet another one.
- In Britain it carries a strong class signal, and in America it reads as either very old or very English.
- The obvious short forms are both noises rather than names.
- It is out of use almost everywhere, so there is no current model for how it wears on a child.
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Humphrey
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Humphreys 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 Humphrey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Humphrey in 2025?
- Humphrey is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Humphrey with classmates?
- Humphrey 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 Humphrey? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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