Ulysses
Masculine · “From Greek Odysseus”
Ulysses is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 18,655 boys against 25 girls since 1880.
Ulysses is the Latin name for the wandering hero of Homer's Odyssey, and it has been read aloud in schoolrooms for something close to three thousand years. Three syllables, all of them soft, with the stress falling in the middle: yoo-LISS-eez. Few names carry a longer paper trail, and fewer still arrive with a whole epic attached.
How old is the name Ulysses?
Ulysses was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Ulysses alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 12,000 people named Ulysses are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ulysses most popular?
Ulysses peaked in 1895, reaching #269 nationally. Today it ranks #1196, 927 places below that high. See the whole 1895 chart.
Ulysses appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Odysseus to Ulysses
The story of Ulysses
The Greek hero is Odysseus; Ulysses is what the Romans called him, through the Latin form Ulixes, which reached Italy by a route that ran through Etruscan and altered the consonants along the way. That Latin form is the one that entered English, so English speakers inherited the Roman hero rather than the Greek one. Tennyson gave it a famous poem in the nineteenth century, James Joyce gave it a famous novel in 1922, and in the United States it was carried by the Union general and president Ulysses S. Grant. The Spanish Ulises is widely used across Latin America, which sits neatly with where the name is strongest in American records.
Meaningscholars disagree
From Greek Odysseus; often connected to a Greek verb for wrath or hatred
Homer himself plays on the resemblance between Odysseus and the Greek verb odyssomai, 'to be angry with, to hate' — the hero as the man of wrath, or the man others hated. Scholars have long argued that this is Homer's wordplay rather than the real etymology, and that the name is older than Greek, from a pre-Greek layer of the Aegean. Both readings are taken seriously; neither has won.
How the name formed
- Odysseus
- Ulixes
- Ulysses
- Ulises
Related forms: Ulises · Ulysse · Ulisse · Ulisses · Odysseas · Ulixes
Pronouncing Ulysses
yoo-LISS-eez
Stress on the middle syllable, with the final syllable said as -eez, not -ess. The Spanish Ulises is a different shape: oo-LEE-ses.
Nicknames for Ulysses
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
- 2001226 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #269reached in 1895
- Change vs 2022
- −11.5%169 in 2025, from 191
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.
Ulysses in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ulises in Spanish — same name
- Ulysse in French — same name
- Ulisse in Italian — same name
- Ulisses in Portuguese — same name
- Odysseas in Greek — related form
- Ulixes in Latin — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Arizona.
Ulyssess among us
people named Ulysses are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,107 born in 2025 was named Ulysses
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Ulysses 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 Ulysses is headed
Ulysses should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Ulysses beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ulysses in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One of the oldest continuously used names in the Western record, from Homer through Latin, Tennyson, Joyce and American history.
- The spelling is long but familiar — most English speakers have seen it in print and will not need it spelled out.
- Travels across Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese with only small changes, so it works in bilingual families.
- Distinctive enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, while still being a name everyone recognizes.
- The pronunciation splits along language lines. English yoo-LISS-eez and Spanish oo-LEE-ses are far enough apart that a bilingual household may want to decide early which one the family uses.
- The associations are heavy and unavoidable: a mythic hero, a Civil War general and president, and a novel with a reputation for being hard to finish. Some people find that a gift; others would rather a name arrive emptier.
- Short forms exist but none is obvious to strangers, so in practice the full three syllables get used most of the time.
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What they receive
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Ulysses
Masculine · #1196 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ulyssess are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Ulysses are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ulysses in 2025?
- Ulysses ranks #1196 among US boy names in 2025, with 169 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ulysses?
- About 1 in every 10,107 US boys born in 2025 was named Ulysses — 169 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ulysses with classmates?
- Ulysses will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ulysses
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jamal#1196 · Zephyr#1196 · Khaza#1196 · Javon#1196 · Norman#1196 · Zavian#1196 · Ever#1196 · Syncere#1193
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ulysses? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ulysses and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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