Orvis
Masculine
Orvis is one of a very small set of English names that begin Orv-, and every one of them came out of the surname stock rather than out of any naming tradition. It has a plain sound, a short shape, and an unusually specific American history.
How old is the name Orvis?
Orvis first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Orvis alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 100 people named Orvis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Orvis most popular?
Orvis peaked in 1885, reaching #836 nationally. See the whole 1885 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Orvis
There is a real Orvis worth knowing. Charles Orvis opened a shop in Vermont selling fishing tackle and, before the century was out, was mailing his reels and rods to customers who would never see the store — the oldest mail-order business in the country still trading under the name of the man who started it. That was a genuine revolution in American life: a catalog meant that a farm three days from a town could buy the same goods as a city. The name's other relatives are its best clue to its character. Orville, Orval and Orvis share a front that occurs almost nowhere else in English, which makes the whole set sound invented and is precisely why it is not: an accidental corner of the language, occupied by a handful of family names and nobody else.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No settled etymology. The surname may come from a Norman personal name or from an English place; neither has been demonstrated, and the readings offered — gold friend, spear friend — are borrowed from other names that merely resemble it. What can be said is that it reached American children as a family name first, which is how almost every name of this shape got here.
Pronouncing Orvis
OR-viss
Two syllables with the stress at the front and a soft s at the end, not a z.
Nicknames for Orvis
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 192044 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #836reached in 1885
- Change vs 1960
- −12.5%7 in 1961, from 8
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.
Orviss among us
people named Orvis are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Orvis sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, entirely unambiguous in the mouth, and almost certainly unique in any room.
- It has the plain, worked sound of an old American name rather than an invented one.
- Orv works as a warm short form without sounding like a diminutive.
- For a great many Americans the name means a fishing catalog first and a person second.
- It is firmly a name of the nineteenth-century countryside and has never had a revival.
- No meaning can honestly be handed to a child with it, only the history of the families who carried it.
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Orvis
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Orviss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Orvis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Orvis in 2025?
- Orvis is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Orvis with classmates?
- Orvis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Oliver#3 · Owen#31 · Oscar#223 · Omar#260 · Otis#652 · Orlando#871 · Otto#277 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Orvis? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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