Park
Masculine · “English park”
A park was a fence before it was a lawn. The Old French parc meant an enclosed tract held for hunting, and the point of it was the boundary: what made a park a park was that it was shut. The modern sense, an open green space anyone may enter, is the exact inversion of the original, and the word took six hundred years to turn round.
How old is the name Park?
Park was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Park alive today was born around 1942, making them about 83 years old. About 700 people named Park are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Park most popular?
Park peaked in 1896, reaching #592 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 7,651 places below that high. See the whole 1896 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From parc to Park
The story of Park
The medieval English park was a legal category. Emparking required a royal license, and the enclosure was marked by a pale, a ditch and bank topped with cloven oak stakes, designed so that deer could leap in and not out. The word for that fence gives us paling and pale, and to be beyond the pale is to be outside an enclosure of exactly this kind. What turned the word inside out was the eighteenth century, when the aristocratic deer park was redesigned by landscape gardeners into something to be looked at rather than hunted in, and then the nineteenth, when cities began building public parks on the model of the private ones. By 1850 the word meant its opposite. Park as an American given name peaks in 1896, in the same period that produced Forrest, Clay and Bird as first names.
Meaning
English park, an enclosure
From Old French parc, an enclosed hunting ground, probably from a Germanic root for a fence or pen, and related to English paddock. As a surname it is English and Scottish, given to someone who lived by or worked in a park. Park is separately one of the three most common Korean surnames, romanised from a name usually written Bak or Pak, and the two are entirely unrelated despite the identical spelling.
How the name formed
- parc
- Park
Related forms: Parke · Parker
Pronouncing Park
park
One syllable, exactly as the common noun. The Korean surname is closer to bahk, with an unaspirated first consonant that English speakers hear as somewhere between b and p, and the standard romanisation Park reflects a British ear rather than the Korean sound.
Nicknames for Park
Limited
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 192333 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #592reached in 1896
- Change vs 2022
- −18.2%9 in 2025, from 11
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.
Park in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Parke in English — spelling variant
- Parker in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Parks among us
people named Park are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Park
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Park 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
Park beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Park in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, never misspelled, never mispronounced.
- It has a documented history both as an English surname and as a Korean one.
- It is short enough to pair with any second name.
- It is an extremely common noun and will be read as one.
- Parker is far more common as a given name.
- The Korean surname is much better known in the United States than the English given name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Park to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Park? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Park
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Parks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Park are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Park in 2025?
- Park ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Park?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Park — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Park with classmates?
- Park will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Park
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 Park? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Park and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle