Sloan
Feminine · “raider”
Sloan is given to both — 8,385 girls and 2,883 boys since 1880. See Sloan as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Sloan began as an Irish surname, anglicized from Ó Sluaghadháin, and crossed the Atlantic with Ulster and Irish families long before anyone thought of it as a first name. One syllable, ending in that long open vowel, it says itself the way it looks. It is familiar to nearly every American ear as a last name, yet a child answering to it will rarely meet another.
How old is the name Sloan?
Sloan first appears in US birth records in 1953 — 72 years ago. The typical Sloan is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 8,300 people named Sloan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Sloan most popular?
Sloan peaked in 2021, reaching #572 nationally. Today it ranks #838, 266 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Sloan appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From sluagh (Irish: host, army) to Sloan
The story of Sloan
The root is the Irish word sluagh, a host or army, which gave sluaghadh, a military expedition, and from there the personal name Sluaghadhán and the surname Ó Sluaghadháin. Anglicized as Sloan and Sloane, it spread through Ulster and then, with emigration, through North America, where it became a common enough surname to feel ordinary. The Sloane spelling is the one attached to London's Sloane Square, named for the eighteenth-century physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane, and to the 1980s British phrase 'Sloane Ranger'. Its life as a given name is much shorter than its life as a surname — American parents began using it in the mid-twentieth century, at first sparingly, and the girls' side has grown far faster than the boys'.
Meaning
raider, fighter — from Irish sluagh, 'host, army'
The surname Ó Sluaghadháin descends from sluaghadh, an armed hosting or raid; the personal name behind it is usually read as 'man of the raid'.
How the name formed
- sluaghIrish: host, army
- Sluaghadhán
- Ó Sluaghadháin
- Sloan
- Sloane
Related forms: Ó Sluaghadháin · Sloane · Slone · Sloan
Pronouncing Sloan
SLOHN
One syllable, rhyming with 'loan'. The spelling gives it away, so misreadings are rare — mishearings between Sloan and Sloane are the usual issue, since the two sound identical.
Nicknames for Sloan
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
- 1953
- Most girls named
- 2021530 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #572reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −12.2%324 in 2025, from 369
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.
Sloan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Sluaghadháin in Irish — related form
- Sloane in English — spelling variant
- Slone in English — spelling variant
- Sloan in Scots — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Illinois.
Sloans among us
people named Sloan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,961 born in 2025 was named Sloan
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 Roxanna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Sloan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Roxanna climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Roxanna's path sketches the road Sloan is walking now.
Sloan 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
Where Sloan is headed
Sloan should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Sloan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Sloan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, spelled the way it sounds — nearly everyone reads it correctly on the first try.
- Already familiar to American ears as a surname, so it needs no explanation even where it is rarely met as a first name.
- A documented line back to the Irish word sluagh, giving it a real history rather than a recent invention.
- Works unchanged across English-speaking countries; nothing needs adapting at a border.
- Sloan and Sloane sound the same, and the longer spelling is the better-known one. Expect to spell it aloud often, and expect forms to come back with an extra e.
- It comes from a surname and travels to both boys and girls, so the name alone will not tell a stranger which. In American use the girls' side is now much the larger of the two.
- At one syllable there is almost nothing to shorten, so what you choose is what will be used — a plus if you want that, a limit if you like having options.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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Sloan
Feminine · #838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Sloans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,300 people named Sloan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Sloan in 2025?
- Sloan ranks #838 among US girl names in 2025, with 324 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Sloan?
- About 1 in every 4,961 US girls born in 2025 was named Sloan — 324 in all.
- Will my child share the name Sloan with classmates?
- Sloan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Sloan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Luz#838 · Jaliyah#838 · Braelynn#837 · Denver#836 · Hunter#841 · Amayah#841 · Michaela#841 · Zaniyah#833
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Sloan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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