Rory
Masculine · “red king”
Rory is given to both — 35,841 boys and 13,580 girls since 1880. See Rory as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Rory comes down from Old Irish through the Gaelic-speaking world, and it has been carried by kings and by golfers since. It is short enough to shout across a field and still soft in the mouth, two syllables that rhyme with story. It also charts in Scotland and in England & Wales, so it travels well between English-speaking countries without needing to be explained.
How old is the name Rory?
Rory first appears in US birth records in 1933 — 92 years ago. The typical Rory alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 33,500 people named Rory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rory most popular?
Rory peaked in 2025, reaching #199 nationally. Today it ranks #199, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Rory appears on these lists:
- Short and sweet: names of four letters or fewer
- Names at their all-time peak, right now
- Borrowed from the girls: names boys are taking back
- Irish names beyond St. Patrick's Day
- Names ending in -y
- all guides
Works in Irish families too:
Where it comes from
From Ruaidrí to Rory
The story of Rory
The name begins as Ruaidrí in Old Irish, a compound of "red" and "king", and it was borne by the last High King of Ireland in the twelfth century, before the Norman arrival reshaped the island. Irish spelling settled on Ruaidhrí and Scottish Gaelic on Ruairidh, and when clerks and emigrants wrote those sounds in English they produced Rory. Older English records sometimes swapped in Roderick as a substitute, which is why the two names sit side by side in some family trees despite unrelated roots. Rory crossed to the United States with Irish and Scottish families and has been on the American record for most of the past century, now rising rather than fading.
Meaning
red king
From the Old Irish elements ruadh, "red" or "red-haired", and rí, "king" — often rendered "red-haired king".
Cultural footprint
Rory McIlroy (b. 1989) — Golf's career Grand Slam champion
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Ruaidrí
- Ruaidhrí
- Ruairidh
- Rory
Related forms: Ruaidhrí · Ruairidh · Ruaraidh · Rorie · Rori · Roderick
Pronouncing Rory
ROR-ee
Rhymes with story; stress on the first syllable. The Irish Ruaidhrí and Gaelic Ruairidh are closer to ROO-ə-ree, which can surprise people meeting the older spellings for the first time.
Nicknames for Rory
High
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
- 1933
- Most boys named
- 20251,768 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #199reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +22.2%1,768 in 2025, from 1,447
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.
Rory in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ruaidhrí in Irish — same name
- Ruairidh in Scottish Gaelic — same name
- Ruaraidh in Scottish Gaelic — spelling variant
- Rorie in English — spelling variant
- Rori in English — spelling variant
- Roderick in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Pennsylvania. International figures from National Records of Scotland, Office for National Statistics. Sources
Rorys among us
people named Rory are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 966 born in 2025 was named Rory
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 Loren test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rory's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Loren climbed just as high around 1939, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Loren's path sketches the road Rory is walking now.
Rory is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Rory is headed
Rory looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 23% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Rory beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rory in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, phonetic and spelled the way it sounds for English speakers — rarely needs repeating on the phone.
- Already a complete name at two syllables, with no long formal version anyone will insist on.
- Recognized across Ireland, Scotland, England and the US, so it crosses borders without translation.
- A documented line back to Old Irish, unbroken through Irish and Scottish Gaelic spellings.
- Works on the record for a boy or a girl without any change in spelling.
- It leans to boys in American records but is genuinely given to girls too, so a daughter named Rory may meet forms and teachers that assume otherwise. Easy to correct, but it will come up more than once.
- The trajectory is upward. A Rory born now is unlikely to share the name in a classroom, but the name will be more familiar by the time they are grown than it is today.
- Two r-sounds close together make it one of the later names a child learns to say cleanly, and it can be misheard as Cory, Tory or Laurie in noisy rooms.
- The Irish and Gaelic spellings — Ruaidhrí, Ruairidh — are the traditional ones, and relatives who know them may treat Rory as the shortcut it historically was.
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What they receive
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Rory
Masculine · #199 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rorys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 33,500 people named Rory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Rory in 2025?
- Rory ranks #199 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,768 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rory?
- About 1 in every 966 US boys born in 2025 was named Rory — 1,768 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rory with classmates?
- Rory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rory
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jaziel#198 · Andres#200 · Caden#201 · Ashton#197 · Knox#196 · Tatum#202 · Alejandro#195 · Timothy#203
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rory? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rory and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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