Usher
Masculine · “doorkeeper”
Usher is a doorkeeper, and the Latin behind it is a mouth — ostium, a door, from os, which is why the man at the door is named for it.
How old is the name Usher?
Usher first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Usher alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,300 people named Usher are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Usher most popular?
Usher peaked in 2025, reaching #1959 nationally. Today it ranks #1959, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From os to Usher
The story of Usher
The usher was a real household office — the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod still knocks on the Commons door with a stick every year. The surname came from the post. It entered American given-name use through a performer who took it as a stage name from 1994, and appears in the registers in current use.
Meaning
doorkeeper
From the Old French ussier and the Latin ostiarius, 'doorkeeper', from ostium, 'door' — itself from os, 'mouth', a door being the mouth of a building. It was an occupational surname for a household or court officer. The etymology is documented.
How the name formed
- os
- ostium
- ostiarius
- Usher
Related forms: Huissier · Ussher
Pronouncing Usher
USH-ur
Two syllables, stress on the first. It is a homophone of the ordinary English noun.
Nicknames for Usher
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 202578 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1959reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +23.8%78 in 2025, from 63
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.
Usher in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Huissier in French — related form
- Ussher in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey.
Ushers among us
people named Usher are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 21,898 born in 2025 was named Usher
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 Jafet test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Usher's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jafet climbed just as high around 2001, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jafet's path sketches the road Usher is walking now.
Usher 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 Usher is headed
Usher looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 18% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Usher beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Usher in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- That a door is a building's mouth is a genuinely good piece of Latin.
- The Black Rod ceremony keeps the office visibly alive.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- It is an ordinary English noun for a job.
- One performer dominates the American association.
- It reads as a surname before it reads as a given name.
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What they receive
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Usher
Masculine · #1959 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ushers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Usher are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Usher in 2025?
- Usher ranks #1959 among US boy names in 2025, with 78 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Usher?
- About 1 in every 21,898 US boys born in 2025 was named Usher — 78 in all.
- Will my child share the name Usher with classmates?
- Usher will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Usher
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Cyaire#1959 · Jaxtyn#1959 · Cross#1959 · Giovanny#1959 · Xayden#1959 · Lior#1959 · Dan#1959 · Greysen#1959
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Usher? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Usher and another name?
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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