Iven
Masculine · “Welsh”
Yvain is the knight with the lion. Chrétien de Troyes wrote his romance around 1177, and the story — a knight who rescues a lion from a serpent and gains a devoted companion — was retold across Europe, becoming Iwein in German and Owain in the Welsh tradition it may have come from.
How old is the name Iven?
Iven first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Iven alive today was born around 1971, making them about 54 years old. About 700 people named Iven are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Iven most popular?
Iven peaked in 1920, reaching #1642 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 6,037 places below that high. See the whole 1920 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Owain to Iven
The story of Iven
Chrétien de Troyes wrote five Arthurian romances in the 1170s and 1180s and effectively invented the form; Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion is the most admired of them. Hartmann von Aue produced the German Iwein around 1200, and a Welsh prose tale, Owain or The Lady of the Fountain, tells the same story — the direction of borrowing between the Welsh and French versions has been argued over for a century without resolution. The lion companion is the detail everyone remembers, and it entered the general stock of medieval romance imagery. The American figures for Iven peak in 1920.
Meaningscholars disagree
Welsh, of contested sense; or Germanic "yew"
Iven is variously a form of Yvain and Owain, a Welsh name of unsettled derivation sometimes connected to Latin Eugenius, and a variant of Ivo, from the Germanic yew element. It is also a Dutch and Low German surname. The record does not distinguish which lies behind an American bearer, and the two lines are unrelated.
How the name formed
- Owain
- Yvain
- Iven
Related forms: Yvain · Iwein · Owain
Pronouncing Iven
EYE-ven
Two syllables, stress on the first, in American use. French Yvain is ee-VAN with a nasal ending; German Iwein is EE-vine.
Nicknames for Iven
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 200626 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1642reached in 1920
- Change vs 2023
- −41.2%10 in 2025, from 17
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.
Iven in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yvain in French — related form
- Iwein in German — related form
- Owain in Welsh — related form
Ivens among us
people named Iven are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Iven
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
Iven 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
Iven beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Iven in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries a major figure of medieval European romance.
- It is short, two syllables and easy to say.
- It is distinctive without being difficult to spell.
- Several unrelated origins converge on the same spelling.
- It is easily confused with Ivan and Evan.
- It is rare in America and unfamiliar to most people.
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Iven
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ivens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Iven are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Iven in 2025?
- Iven ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Iven?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Iven — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Iven with classmates?
- Iven will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Iven
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Iven? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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