Parrish
Masculine · “Greek paroikia”
Parrish is given to both — 2,706 boys and 484 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
A parish is named for foreignness. Greek paroikia meant the state of living beside, of dwelling somewhere without belonging, and early Christian writers used it for congregations who thought of themselves as resident aliens in the world. The basic administrative unit of European Christianity is named after not being from here.
How old is the name Parrish?
Parrish first appears in US birth records in 1943 — 82 years ago. The typical Parrish alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 2,500 people named Parrish are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Parrish most popular?
Parrish peaked in 1966, reaching #663 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 7,580 places below that high. See the whole 1966 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From paroikia to Parrish
The story of Parrish
The Greek word oikos, house or household, is one of the most productive in the European vocabulary. It gives economy, from oikonomia, the management of a household, and ecology, from oikologia, the study of the household, both nineteenth-century coinages built on an ancient word. It gives diocese, through dioikesis, an administration. And it gives parish, through paroikia, whose sense of living beside rather than in was taken up by the writers of the first Christian centuries as a description of the church's position in the world: present, settled, and not native. The Latin church kept the word as a territorial term and the theology fell away, so that by the Middle Ages a parish was simply a district with a priest. The surname is medieval English and belongs to someone associated with one.
Meaning
Greek paroikia, a dwelling beside
From Greek para, beside or alongside, and oikos, a house or household, giving paroikos, a sojourner or resident alien, and paroikia, the condition or community of such people. Through Late Latin parochia and Old French paroisse it gave English parish. The doubled r of the surname is the standard English device for marking the preceding vowel short. Parrish peaks in 1966.
How the name formed
- paroikia
- parochia
- Parrish
Related forms: Parish · Parroquia
Pronouncing Parrish
PAR-ish
Two syllables, stress on the first, short a. The doubled r fixes the vowel as short, which is its whole function. Identical in sound to the single-r spelling.
Nicknames for Parrish
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
- 1943
- Most boys named
- 1966124 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #663reached in 1966
- Change vs 2024
- −10.0%9 in 2025, from 10
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.
Parrish in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Parish in English — spelling variant
- Parroquia in Spanish — related form
Parrishs among us
people named Parrish are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Parrish
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Parrish
- #8243
- Parrish on the 2025 chart
- #910
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Parrish went to 9 boys in 2025, but Parish is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 18, which makes it the 910th most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,333 places above the chart.
- Parish9
- Parrish9
About 1 boy in 94,893 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 189,786 for Parrish itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Hoke test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Parrish's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Hoke climbed just as high around 1907, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Hoke's path sketches the road Parrish is walking now.
Parrish 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
Parrish beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Parrish in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The etymology is documented back to Greek and is genuinely surprising.
- The doubled r makes the pronunciation unambiguous.
- It fits the surname-as-first-name style comfortably.
- Parish with one r is a competing spelling in the same records.
- It is close in sound to the verb perish.
- The church association is explicit.
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What they receive
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Parrish
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Parrishs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,500 people named Parrish are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Parrish?
- Parrish is one of 2 recorded spellings. Parish is the more common one — 9 births in 2025 against 9 for Parrish.
- How popular is the name Parrish in 2025?
- Parrish ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Parrish?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Parrish — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Parrish with classmates?
- Parrish will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Parrish
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 Parrish? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Parrish and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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