Robin
Feminine · “bright fame”
Robin is given to both — 291,961 girls and 46,952 boys since 1880. See Robin as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Robin began as the everyday medieval nickname for Robert, and it has been in English mouths so long that the bird got the name from the people, not the other way round — the redbreast was given a human pet name, the way the wren became Jenny. Shakespeare put a Robin Goodfellow in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Two soft syllables, no silent letters, nothing to explain at the door.
How old is the name Robin?
Robin first appears in US birth records in 1904 — 121 years ago. The typical Robin alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 260,000 people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Robin most popular?
Robin peaked in 1962, reaching #25 nationally. Today it ranks #704, 679 places below that high. See the whole 1962 chart.
Robin appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Hrodebert to Robin
The story of Robin
The Germanic name Hrodebert traveled into France with the Normans as Robert, and French speakers built the affectionate Robin from it with the little -in ending they used for pet forms. It crossed to England after the Conquest and became one of the commonest men's names of the later Middle Ages — common enough that the Robin Hood ballads, circulating by the fourteenth century, could use it as a plain man's name. Its road to girls is different and much more recent: an English-speaking taste for slim, bird-and-boy names carried it over in the twentieth century, helped along by the redbreast that shares it. Both roads are real, which is why the name now sits close to evenly split.
Meaning
bright fame — through Robert
Robin is the medieval French and English pet form of Robert, from the Germanic Hrodebert: hrod, 'fame', plus beraht, 'bright'. The garden bird carries the same name because English speakers handed it one.
How the name formed
- Hrodebert
- Robert
- Robin
Related forms: Robin · Robyn · Robin · Robin · Robin · Robinet
Pronouncing Robin
ROB-in
Stress on the first syllable. Said the same for a girl or a boy, and the same in French apart from a lighter final n.
Nicknames for Robin
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
- 1904
- Most girls named
- 196115,653 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #25reached in 1962
- Change vs 2023
- +11.7%400 in 2025, from 358
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.
Robin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Robin in French — same name
- Robyn in English — spelling variant
- Robin in German — same name
- Robin in Swedish — same name
- Robin in Czech — same name
- Robinet in Old French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Robins among us
people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,018 born in 2025 was named Robin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Robin
- #704
- Robin on the 2025 chart
- #484
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Robin went to 400 girls in 2025, but Robyn and Robynn are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 558, which makes it the 484th most-given girls’ name of the year — 220 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,880 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 4,018 for Robin 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 Thelma test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Robin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Thelma climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Thelma's path sketches the road Robin is walking now.
Robin is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Robin is headed
Robin should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Robin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Robin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled and pronounced correctly on first sight by nearly every English speaker, with no accents or silent letters.
- An unbroken record of use since the Middle Ages, so it reads as familiar rather than invented.
- Works as-is in French, German, Swedish and Czech — one of the few English nicknames that needs no translation.
- Rising again after a long dip, while being uncommon enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- The girl–boy split is close to even, so the name alone tells a teacher or a form-filler nothing. Some families like that; others find the constant small corrections tiring.
- Robyn is a well-established alternative spelling, which means a lifetime of being asked "with an i or a y?"
- It is still strongly represented among older generations, so most adults will have known a Robin decades their senior — pleasant for some ears, dated to others.
- Robin Hood and Batman's Robin are both permanent fixtures. Neither is unkind, but jokes will arrive early and then wear out.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Robin to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Robin
Feminine · #704 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Robins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 260,000 people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Robin?
- Robin is the most-used spelling in US records — 400 of the 558 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Robyn and Robynn.
- How popular is the name Robin in 2025?
- Robin ranks #704 among US girl names in 2025, with 400 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Robin?
- About 1 in every 4,018 US girls born in 2025 was named Robin — 400 in all.
- Will my child share the name Robin with classmates?
- Robin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Robin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Drew#705 · Merritt#703 · Angie#705 · Nia#702 · Kennedi#707 · Averie#701 · Alena#707 · Angelica#707
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Robin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Robin and another name?
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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
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