Seymour
Masculine · “of Saint Maur”
Seymour is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 13,112 boys against 10 girls since 1880.
Seymour is a French village with a saint's name — Saint-Maur — carried to England by a Norman family whose descendants married into the English throne twice over.
How old is the name Seymour?
Seymour was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Seymour alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 1,300 people named Seymour are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Seymour most popular?
Seymour peaked in 1924, reaching #182 nationally. Today it ranks #7194, 7,012 places below that high. See the whole 1924 chart.
Seymour appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Maurus to Seymour
The story of Seymour
The St Maur family came to England after the Conquest and their name settled into the spelling Seymour. They became one of the great Tudor houses: Jane Seymour was Henry VIII's third queen and mother of Edward VI, and her brothers ran the country during that king's minority. The surname crossed into given-name use in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — a common English practice for families with grand connections — and it stood in the American top two hundred for boys in the early 1880s.
Meaning
of Saint Maur
From the Norman place names Saint-Maur in Normandy, dedicated to Saint Maurus. Maurus is Latin for 'a Moor' or, more loosely, 'dark-skinned' — a Roman byname that became a saint's name through a sixth-century follower of Benedict.
How the name formed
- Maurus
- Saint-Maur
- Seymour
Related forms: Saint-Maur · Mauro · Mauro
Pronouncing Seymour
SEE-mor
Two syllables, stress on the first. The spelling gives no hint of the French original, which is said sanh-MOR.
Nicknames for Seymour
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1924786 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #182reached in 1924
- Change vs 2022
- +83.3%11 in 2025, from 6
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.
Seymour in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Saint-Maur in French — related form
- Mauro in Italian — related form
- Mauro in Spanish — related form
Seymours among us
people named Seymour are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was named Seymour
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 Kermit test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Seymour's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kermit climbed just as high around 1909, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kermit's path sketches the road Seymour is walking now.
Seymour 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
Seymour beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Seymour in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Norman family with a traceable place of origin and a substantial English history.
- Two firm syllables that read as formal without being difficult.
- Sy is a brisk and completely unfussy short form.
- It is a long, formal-sounding name that is firmly period-coded to the nineteenth century.
- The English pronunciation has drifted a long way from the French place name behind it.
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What they receive
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Seymour
Masculine · #7194 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Seymours are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Seymour are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Seymour in 2025?
- Seymour ranks #7194 among US boy names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Seymour?
- About 1 in every 155,280 US boys born in 2025 was named Seymour — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Seymour with classmates?
- Seymour will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Seymour
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Junius#7194 · Orie#7194 · Shade#7194 · Chesley#7194 · Joesph#7194 · Lofton#7194 · Macon#7194 · Benjiman#7194
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Seymour? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Seymour and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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