Slater
Masculine · Old French roots · “one who lays slate roofs”
Slater is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,378 boys against 67 girls since 1880.
Slater began as a job: the man who split slate and laid it on roofs, in the quarry country of northern England. It reached American birth records generations ago and has stayed there, thin but unbroken, and lately climbing. In the mouth it rhymes with later, and the spelling gives itself away on first hearing.
How old is the name Slater?
Slater first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Slater alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 2,300 people named Slater are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Slater most popular?
Slater peaked in 2025, reaching #1267 nationally. Today it ranks #1267, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From esclat (Old French, 'a split piece') to Slater
The story of Slater
Slater is one of the trades that turned into a family name in medieval England, alongside Thatcher, Tyler and Mason. It clustered where the stone was — the slate districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and north Wales — and passed down the male line long after the roofing stopped. Emigration carried it to North America as a surname, and from there it followed the long-standing American habit of promoting a last name to a first, the same road walked by Carter, Tanner, Parker and Cooper. Its present strength in California, Texas and Florida is exactly what that pattern usually looks like.
Meaning
one who lays slate roofs; a slate-worker
An English occupational surname, from Middle English slat/sclate for roofing slate, itself from Old French esclat, a piece split off.
How the name formed
- esclatOld French, 'a split piece'
- sclate / slatMiddle English roofing slate
- SlaterEnglish occupational byname
- SlaterEnglish surname
- SlaterAmerican given name
Related forms: Slatter · Sclater
Pronouncing Slater
SLAY-ter
Two syllables, stress on the first, rhyming with later and greater. No competing pronunciation in English.
Nicknames for Slater
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
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 2025155 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1267reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +36.0%155 in 2025, from 114
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.
Slater in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Slatter in English — spelling variant
- Sclater in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Slaters among us
people named Slater are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 11,020 born in 2025 was named Slater
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 Ronell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Slater's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ronell climbed just as high around 1976, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ronell's path sketches the road Slater is walking now.
Slater 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 Slater is headed
Slater should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Slater beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Slater in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelling follows directly from the sound — hear it once, write it right, with no silent letters or vowel choices to explain.
- A documented English surname with centuries of continuous record behind it, so the name is old even where it is new as a first name.
- Sits comfortably in the established American surname-as-first-name set: Carter, Tanner, Parker, Baxter.
- Has a ready short form in Slate, which works on its own without sounding like a nickname.
- Present on US birth records for well over a century rather than being newly coined.
- To most American ears Slater still reads as a last name first — it belongs to famous athletes and television characters in the surname slot. Expect the occasional "is that his first or last name?"
- In parts of Scotland and Ireland, slater is the everyday dialect word for a woodlouse. Harmless, but worth knowing if you have family there.
- The trend line is upward. Right now a Slater is very likely the only one in the building; that could loosen somewhat over the years he is in school.
- Because Slatter and Slayter both exist as surnames, a small share of people will guess the wrong letters when writing it down from a spoken introduction.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Slater
Masculine · Old French roots · #1267 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Slaters are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Slater are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Slater in 2025?
- Slater ranks #1267 among US boy names in 2025, with 155 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Slater?
- About 1 in every 11,020 US boys born in 2025 was named Slater — 155 in all.
- Will my child share the name Slater with classmates?
- Slater will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Slater
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kiran#1267 · Noam#1267 · Aksel#1267 · Emil#1267 · Kenny#1267 · Jahseh#1267 · Dion#1267 · Shaurya#1267
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Slater? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Slater and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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