Leonides
Masculine
Leonides is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 693 boys against 18 girls since 1880.
The -ides ending is a working patronymic. Leonides means son of Leon, the way Atreides means son of Atreus and Heraclides son of Heracles — Greek had a live grammatical suffix for descent, and it survives in the name of the Spartan king who held Thermopylae in 480 BC.
How old is the name Leonides?
Leonides first appears in US birth records in 1920 — 105 years ago. The typical Leonides alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 600 people named Leonides are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leonides most popular?
Leonides peaked in 1942, reaching #2268 nationally. Today it ranks #7194, 4,926 places below that high. See the whole 1942 chart.
Where it comes from
From leon to Leonides
The story of Leonides
Every language with strong kinship marking builds it into names. Greek used -ides and -iades; Aramaic put bar in front; Arabic uses ibn; Norse and modern Icelandic add -son and -dóttir; Spanish uses -ez; Russian uses -ovich as a live middle name. English fossilized its version into Johnson and Wilson and stopped generating new ones centuries ago. Greek is unusual in that the suffix was literary as well as legal — Homer calls Agamemnon Atreides, son of Atreus, as a formal epithet. Leonidas of Sparta made the name permanent, and it stayed in use in the Greek Church; the American figures for the Leonides spelling peak in 1942, largely with Greek and Hispanic families.
Meaning
Greek "son of the lion" or "lion-like"
From leon, a lion, plus -ides, a patronymic suffix meaning son of or descendant of. Leonidas is the classical spelling; Leonides reflects the Latin and Spanish rendering. The lion word is itself a wanderer — Greek leon, Latin leo, Hebrew labi and Egyptian rw are probably all borrowings from a single ancient source, since the animal was not native to most of the places that named it.
How the name formed
- leon
- Leonidas
- Leonides
Related forms: Λεωνίδας · Leónidas · Leonid · Leonidas
Pronouncing Leonides
leh-OH-nee-des
Four syllables, stress on the second in Spanish and Greek. English speakers usually say lee-ON-i-deez, keeping the Greek ending as -eez, which is the classical convention for Greek names in English.
Nicknames for Leonides
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
- 1920
- Most boys named
- 201517 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2268reached in 1942
- Change vs 2024
- −35.3%11 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.
Leonides in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Λεωνίδας in Greek — same name
- Leónidas in Spanish — same name
- Leonid in Russian — same name
- Leonidas in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Leonidess among us
people named Leonides are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was named Leonides
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 Pearce test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Leonides's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Pearce climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Pearce's path sketches the road Leonides is walking now.
Leonides 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
Leonides beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Leonides 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 the grammar behind it is transparent.
- Leo is an immediate, widely used short form.
- It carries one of the best-known names in Greek history.
- Leonidas is the more common spelling and will be substituted.
- Four syllables invites shortening in everyday American use.
- English and Spanish stress the name on different syllables.
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What they receive
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Leonides
Masculine · #7194 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Leonidess are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Leonides are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Leonides in 2025?
- Leonides ranks #7194 among US boy names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Leonides?
- About 1 in every 155,280 US boys born in 2025 was named Leonides — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Leonides with classmates?
- Leonides will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Leonides
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Junius#7194 · Orie#7194 · Shade#7194 · Chesley#7194 · Joesph#7194 · Lofton#7194 · Macon#7194 · Benjiman#7194
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leonides? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Leonides and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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