Ron
Masculine · “ruler's counsel”
Ron is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 36,362 boys against 70 girls since 1880.
Ron is the front of Ronald, and Ronald is a Norse name that reached Scotland by longship. Rögnvaldr was carried by the earls of Orkney when those islands answered to Norway rather than to Scotland.
How old is the name Ron?
Ron first appears in US birth records in 1919 — 106 years ago. The typical Ron alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 28,000 people named Ron are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ron most popular?
Ron peaked in 1959, reaching #166 nationally. Today it ranks #4249, 4,083 places below that high. See the whole 1959 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Rögnvaldr to Ron
The story of Ron
Norse settlement in the Northern Isles and the Hebrides left a layer of Scandinavian names in Scottish Gaelic, and Rögnvaldr became Raghnall and then Ronald. It stayed a Scottish name for centuries before spreading through the English-speaking world in the twentieth. Ron followed it as a legal name in its own right, registered in American records from the 1930s and peaking in the mid-1950s.
Meaning
ruler's counsel
Through Ronald, from the Old Norse Rögnvaldr — regin, 'advice' or 'decision', in a sense that carries a suggestion of divine counsel, and valdr, 'ruler'. The same compound gives the English Reynold and the German Reinwald.
How the name formed
- Rögnvaldr
- Raghnall
- Ronald
- Ron
Related forms: Raghnall · Reinwald · Reynold · Ragnvald
Pronouncing Ron
RON
One syllable. Said identically in every English accent.
Nicknames for Ron
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
- 1919
- Most boys named
- 19591,875 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #166reached in 1959
- Change vs 2023
- −35.1%24 in 2025, from 37
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.
Ron in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Raghnall in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Reinwald in German — related form
- Reynold in English — related form
- Ragnvald in Norwegian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Rons among us
people named Ron are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 71,170 born in 2025 was named Ron
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 Carroll test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ron's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carroll climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carroll's path sketches the road Ron is walking now.
Ron 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
Ron beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ron in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ronald stands behind it with a documented Norse and Scottish record.
- Three letters, one syllable, and never misheard.
- The meaning is coherent and the elements are well attested.
- Given outright it stays informal, with nothing longer on the certificate.
- It is closely associated with the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Ron
Masculine · #4249 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 28,000 people named Ron are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ron in 2025?
- Ron ranks #4249 among US boy names in 2025, with 24 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ron?
- About 1 in every 71,170 US boys born in 2025 was named Ron — 24 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ron with classmates?
- Ron will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ron
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Guadalupe#4249 · Denny#4249 · Hughes#4249 · Erling#4249 · Rodrick#4249 · Elric#4249 · Corvin#4249 · Wright#4249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ron? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ron and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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