Juvenal
Masculine · “Latin iuvenalis”
Two phrases everyone knows come from one satirist. Bread and circuses, the formula for a public bought off with food and spectacle, and who will guard the guards themselves, the question every constitution has to answer, are both from Juvenal, writing in Rome around the year 100. His name is simply the Latin word for youthful.
How old is the name Juvenal?
Juvenal first appears in US birth records in 1922 — 103 years ago. The typical Juvenal alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 1,200 people named Juvenal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Juvenal most popular?
Juvenal peaked in 1991, reaching #1798 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 6,445 places below that high. See the whole 1991 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From iuvenalis to Juvenal
The story of Juvenal
Juvenal wrote sixteen satires, and their influence on European literature is out of all proportion to their length. Samuel Johnson imitated two of them in English; the phrase panem et circenses, bread and circuses, comes from the tenth, as does the observation that one should pray for a sound mind in a sound body, mens sana in corpore sano, which now appears on gymnasium walls stripped of its context. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, who guards the guards, comes from the sixth, where it is a joke about hiring men to watch a wife, and has since been quoted in constitutional law, intelligence oversight and comic books. Almost nothing is known about the man himself beyond the poems. The name reached the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world as Juvenal through the saint rather than the satirist, and peaks in the United States in 1991.
Meaning
Latin iuvenalis, youthful
From Latin iuvenis, a young person, and the adjectival ending -alis, giving iuvenalis, youthful or of youth. The same root gives English juvenile, junior, rejuvenate and, through a different line, young. Decimus Junius Juvenalis, the satirist, is the reason the word survives as a name; a fourth-century bishop of Narni made it a saint's name and it entered the Christian calendar from there.
How the name formed
- iuvenalis
- Juvenalis
- Juvenal
Related forms: Juvenal · Juvenal · Juvenal
Pronouncing Juvenal
hoo-veh-NAHL
Three syllables in Spanish, stress on the last. English says JOO-vuh-nul with the stress at the front, exactly like the adjective juvenile without its ending. The two are far apart in sound.
Nicknames for Juvenal
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
- 1922
- Most boys named
- 199144 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1798reached in 1991
- Change vs 2023
- +28.6%9 in 2025, 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.
Juvenal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Juvenal in Spanish — same name
- Juvenal in Portuguese — same name
- Juvenal in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Juvenals among us
people named Juvenal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Juvenal
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 Lyndel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Juvenal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lyndel climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lyndel's path sketches the road Juvenal is walking now.
Juvenal 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
Juvenal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Juvenal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and transparent to anyone who knows the word juvenile.
- It has a documented literary and a documented religious history.
- It is distinctive without being obscure in Spanish.
- In English the word juvenile is most often heard in a legal or negative sense.
- The Spanish and English pronunciations share almost nothing.
- It is rare in English-speaking settings and will need explaining.
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What they receive
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Juvenal
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Juvenals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Juvenal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Juvenal in 2025?
- Juvenal ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Juvenal?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Juvenal — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Juvenal with classmates?
- Juvenal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Juvenal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Danial#8243 · Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Juvenal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Juvenal and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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