Skipper
Masculine · “Dutch schipper”
Skipper is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 830 boys against 11 girls since 1880.
Skipper is Dutch. A schipper was a ship's master, English took the word in the fourteenth century, and America turned it into one of a small set of boy-nicknames, alongside Buddy, Sonny, Chip and Junior, that ended up on birth certificates.
How old is the name Skipper?
Skipper first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Skipper alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 600 people named Skipper are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Skipper most popular?
Skipper peaked in 1962, reaching #1367 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,328 places below that high. See the whole 1962 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From schipper to Skipper
The story of Skipper
American naming produced a small class of names that are frankly nicknames and were nevertheless written on legal documents: Buddy, Sonny, Junior, Chip, Bud, Butch and Skipper. They share a shape, two syllables or one, and a register, warm and informal, and they cluster in the middle decades of the twentieth century. What is unusual is that they carry no formal version at all, so a man named Skipper has nothing else to fall back on in a courtroom or on a passport, which is a different situation from a Bill who is legally William. The word itself is a genuine loan from Dutch, one of a set that includes deck, dock, yacht, cruise, freight and sloop, all arriving with the maritime trade.
Meaning
Dutch schipper, a ship's master
From Middle Dutch schipper, the master of a ship, from schip. English borrowed it through trade with the Low Countries. As a given name it belongs to the American mid-century habit of registering affectionate nicknames; the peak is 1962.
How the name formed
- schipper
- skipper
- Skipper
Related forms: Schipper
Pronouncing Skipper
SKIP-ur
Two syllables, stress on the first. It is said exactly like the ordinary noun.
Nicknames for Skipper
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
- 1937
- Most boys named
- 196233 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1367reached in 1962
- Change vs 1990
- +20.0%6 in 2025, from 5
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.
Skipper in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Schipper in Dutch — related form
Skippers among us
people named Skipper are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Skipper
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 Delores test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Skipper's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Delores climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Delores's path sketches the road Skipper is walking now.
Skipper 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
Skipper beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Skipper in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Skip works as a short form and is a name in its own right.
- The word is concrete and universally understood.
- Two syllables and seven letters, spelled as heard.
- It is a nickname with no formal version behind it.
- It reads as informal in every setting.
- The 1962 peak dates it to the mid-century.
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What they receive
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Skipper
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Skippers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Skipper are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Skipper in 2025?
- Skipper ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Skipper?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Skipper — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Skipper with classmates?
- Skipper will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Skipper
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jamez#10695 · Danyel#10695 · Mychael#10695 · Aydenn#10695 · Nikkolas#10695 · Kevyn#10695 · Maliq#10695 · Garett#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Skipper? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Skipper and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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