Robin
Masculine · “bright fame”
Robin is given to both — 46,952 boys and 291,961 girls since 1880. See Robin as a girl 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 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Robin alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 37,000 people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Robin most popular?
Robin peaked in 1956, reaching #143 nationally. Today it ranks #703, 560 places below that high. See the whole 1956 chart.
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 19562,247 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #143reached in 1956
- Change vs 2022
- +20.1%382 in 2025, from 318
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. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from INSEE. Sources
Robins among us
people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 4,471 born in 2025 was named Robin
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 Ted 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: Ted climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ted'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 boys 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
Masculine · #703 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 37,000 people named Robin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Robin in 2025?
- Robin ranks #703 among US boy names in 2025, with 382 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Robin?
- About 1 in every 4,471 US boys born in 2025 was named Robin — 382 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.
Ryland#703 · Bryer#703 · Ahmed#703 · Kareem#701 · Bridger#701 · Jayson#700 · Dennis#707 · Marvin#699
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; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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