Skip
Masculine · “ship's master”
Skip is a rank. It shortens skipper, the master of a ship, which English took from Dutch schipper in the age when Dutch was the language of European shipping. Somewhere between the harbor and the American suburb it became what you call the second son.
How old is the name Skip?
Skip first appears in US birth records in 1930 — 95 years ago. The typical Skip alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 1,600 people named Skip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Skip most popular?
Skip peaked in 1960, reaching #752 nationally. Today it ranks #6446, 5,694 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From schipper to Skip
The story of Skip
American nicknaming has a small set of ranks and roles used as affectionate names for boys, Chip, Buddy, Chief, Sport, Skipper and Skip among them, and they cluster hard in the middle of the twentieth century. Several of them were then registered as legal names, which is why Skip appears in the records at all rather than only in conversation. The habit of writing a nickname on a certificate is older than it looks and was widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, when informality was itself fashionable. Skip's best year on file is 1960, and both the naming habit and the names it produced faded together in the 1970s.
Meaning
ship's master, captain
From skipper, borrowed into English from Middle Dutch schipper, a shipmaster, from schip, a ship. English took a large number of nautical words from Dutch in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including yacht, sloop, dock, cruise and freight. Skip is the clipped form and carries the same sense; the English verb to skip is a separate word entirely.
How the name formed
- schipper
- skipper
- Skip
Related forms: Schipper · Skipper
Pronouncing Skip
SKIP
One syllable, four letters, no ambiguity of any kind.
Nicknames for Skip
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
- 1930
- Most boys named
- 1960105 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #752reached in 1960
- Change vs 2023
- +62.5%13 in 2025, from 8
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.
Skip in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Schipper in Dutch — related form
- Skipper in English — related form
Skips among us
people named Skip are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 131,390 born in 2025 was named Skip
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 Clive test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Skip's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Clive climbed just as high around 1906, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Clive's path sketches the road Skip is walking now.
Skip 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
Skip beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Skip in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable and impossible to mispronounce or misspell.
- A concrete meaning with a documented Dutch borrowing behind it.
- Warm and informal in a way most one-syllable names are not.
- It is also a common English verb, which produces constant wordplay.
- It reads as a nickname rather than a full name, and always will.
- In American ears it is precisely dated to the 1950s and 1960s.
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What they receive
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Skip
Masculine · #6446 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Skips are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Skip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Skip in 2025?
- Skip ranks #6446 among US boy names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Skip?
- About 1 in every 131,390 US boys born in 2025 was named Skip — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Skip with classmates?
- Skip will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Skip
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rollie#6446 · Billie#6446 · Worth#6446 · Blas#6446 · Starling#6446 · Alvis#6446 · Elwyn#6446 · Rollin#6446
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Skip? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Skip and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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