Onyx
Masculine · Greek roots · “Claw or fingernail”
Onyx is given to both — 6,849 boys and 1,783 girls since 1880. See Onyx as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Onyx is the name of a stone, and the stone was named for a fingernail — the Greeks looked at its pale, curved bands and saw a claw or a nail. The word traveled from Greek into Latin, into English Bibles, and onto jewellers' trays, and only lately onto birth certificates. Two syllables, a hard start and a crisp finish, and no one has to ask how to say it.
How old is the name Onyx?
Onyx first appears in US birth records in 1990 — 35 years ago. The typical Onyx is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 6,800 people named Onyx are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Onyx most popular?
Onyx peaked in 2023, reaching #307 nationally. Today it ranks #365, 58 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From ónyx (Greek) to Onyx
The story of Onyx
The word begins in ancient Greek as ónyx, nail or claw, and became the name of a banded chalcedony whose pale layers looked like a fingernail. Latin took it unchanged, and English translations of the Hebrew Bible put it among the precious things of Genesis and the stones set into the high priest's breastplate, which kept it in circulation for centuries as a word people read aloud. From there it belonged to gemmology and jewelry, where the black variety became the best known. Its life as a given name is recent — it joins Jasper, Opal and Ruby on the shelf of stone names, but unlike most of them it has arrived chiefly on boys.
Meaning
Claw or fingernail — by way of the banded stone
The Greek ónyx meant nail or claw; the veined stone took the word because its layers resembled a fingernail. In modern use the name reads simply as the gemstone, most familiar in its black form.
How the name formed
- ónyxGreek
- onyxLatin
- onyxEnglish, the stone
- Onyxgiven name
Related forms: Ónix · Ônix · Onyx · Onyx · Onice · Оникс (Oniks)
Pronouncing Onyx
ON-iks
Stress on the first syllable, the x sounded as -ks. The pronunciation is fixed by the ordinary English word, so it rarely needs repeating.
Nicknames for Onyx
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
- 1990
- Most boys named
- 20231,079 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #307reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −5.4%881 in 2025, from 931
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.
Onyx in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ónix in Spanish — spelling variant
- Ônix in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Onyx in French — same name
- Onyx in German — same name
- Onice in Italian — related form
- Оникс (Oniks) in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Onyxs among us
people named Onyx are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,939 born in 2025 was named Onyx
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 Thaddeus test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Onyx's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Thaddeus climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Thaddeus's path sketches the road Onyx is walking now.
Onyx 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 Onyx is headed
Onyx looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 45% 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.
Onyx beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Onyx in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Everyone already knows the word, so the pronunciation almost never needs explaining.
- Two clean syllables that sit easily against most surnames and don't blur into the name beside them.
- Spelled and said much the same in Spanish, Portuguese, French and German.
- Works for a girl or a boy without alteration, and lends short forms — Nyx, Nix — that stand on their own.
- A word with an unbroken written record from ancient Greek through English Bibles to modern jewelry.
- The spelling has rivals. Ónix, Onix and Onex all exist in the wild, and one of them belongs to a widely known video-game creature, so expect to spell it out on forms for life.
- It leans male in American records, with a real minority of girls. A girl named Onyx will meet the occasional wrong assumption before people see her.
- This is a very young name, so most people carrying it are children. An adult Onyx is still an unusual thing, and a child will likely be the only one in the school.
- The stone is best known in its black polished form, and the name carries that image with it. Some parents love exactly that; it's worth knowing it comes along.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Onyx
Masculine · Greek roots · #365 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Onyxs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,800 people named Onyx are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Onyx in 2025?
- Onyx ranks #365 among US boy names in 2025, with 881 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Onyx?
- About 1 in every 1,939 US boys born in 2025 was named Onyx — 881 in all.
- Will my child share the name Onyx with classmates?
- Onyx will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Onyx
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Erick#366 · Kaizen#364 · Kyaire#367 · Anderson#363 · Andre#368 · Cristian#362 · Jaylen#361 · Miller#369
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Onyx? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Onyx and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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