Milan
Masculine · Slavic roots · “Dear”
Milan is given to both — 18,608 boys and 9,557 girls since 1880. See Milan as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Two syllables, five letters, no silent anything — Milan travels well in almost any language that has vowels. It has been a steady men's name across Czech, Slovak, Serbian and Croatian for centuries, and it is also the English name of a great Italian city, which is how many American families first met it. The novelist Milan Kundera carried it out of Czechoslovakia and into world literature.
How old is the name Milan?
Milan first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Milan is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 16,000 people named Milan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Milan most popular?
Milan peaked in 2023, reaching #230 nationally. Today it ranks #242, 12 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From mil- (Slavic element, 'dear, gracious') to Milan
The story of Milan
Milan is one of the old Slavic compound-style names, rooted in mil- 'dear', and it has been in continuous use as a man's name in the Czech lands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia for many centuries. Quite separately, English speakers have long called the Lombard city Milano by the shorter form Milan, so the word was already familiar in America as a place before it was common as a name. In the United States the two lines have simply merged: the sound arrives ready-made, with Slavic history behind it and an Italian city beside it. The recent American wave is very much a wave — this is a name whose bearers here are mostly children, while in Central Europe it is a name of grandfathers.
Meaningscholars disagree
Dear, gracious, kind — from the Slavic element mil-
Two different names share this spelling. The Slavic given name is built on mil- 'dear, gracious', the same element behind Milena, Miloš and Milica; that reading is well established. But some American parents take the name from the Italian city, whose own name goes back to Latin Mediolanum, usually read as 'in the middle of the plain'. Which meaning belongs to a particular child depends entirely on which road the family walked in on.
Cultural footprint
Milan Kundera (b. 1929) — Wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- mil-Slavic element, 'dear, gracious'
- Milan
Related forms: Milan · Милан · Milan · Milen · Milana · Milano
Pronouncing Milan
mee-LAHN
Most American families say mee-LAHN, like the city. Czech, Slovak and Serbian speakers stress the first syllable: MEE-lahn. Both are correct for the name; expect to state your preference more than once.
Nicknames for Milan
High
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 20231,524 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #230reached in 2023
- Change vs 2023
- −7.0%1,418 in 2025, from 1,524
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.
Milan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Milan in Czech / Slovak — same name
- Милан in Serbian — transliteration
- Milan in Slovene / Croatian — same name
- Milen in Bulgarian — related form
- Milana in Russian / Serbian (feminine) — related form
- Milano in Italian (the city) — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, California, Texas. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from Statistics Canada, INSEE. Sources
Milans among us
people named Milan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,205 born in 2025 was named Milan
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 Cedric test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Milan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Cedric climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Cedric's path sketches the road Milan is walking now.
Milan is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Milan is headed
Milan looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 44% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Milan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Milan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, phonetic and spelled the way it sounds in most European languages — one of the easier names to carry across borders.
- Also charts in Canada and France, so it is recognizable well beyond US records.
- Centuries of unbroken use across Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian and Slovene naming, which gives it real depth behind a modern-sounding surface.
- Has ready-made short forms — Mila, Mile, Milo — that already exist in real use rather than needing invention.
- Two live pronunciations, mee-LAHN and MEE-lahn, both legitimate. Families with Slavic roots may say it one way and teachers another, and the correction becomes a small lifelong habit.
- Many people will hear the Italian city first and assume the name is a travel souvenir. That is a fine story if it is yours, and slightly tiring if it isn't.
- This spelling goes mostly to boys in US records, with a real minority of girls. A girl named Milan will meet forms and rosters that guessed wrong, which is manageable but worth expecting.
- It is climbing quickly. A child named Milan now is unlikely to share a classroom with another, but the name will be more familiar by the time they finish school than it is today.
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What they receive
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Milan
Masculine · Slavic roots · #242 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Milans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 16,000 people named Milan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Milan in 2025?
- Milan ranks #242 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,418 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Milan?
- About 1 in every 1,205 US boys born in 2025 was named Milan — 1,418 in all.
- Will my child share the name Milan with classmates?
- Milan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Milan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ellis#243 · Adonis#241 · Mark#244 · Warren#240 · Kyrie#244 · Muhammad#239 · Shepherd#246 · Dallas#238
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Milan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Milan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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