Xavier
Masculine · “the new house”
Xavier is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 160,332 boys against 868 girls since 1880. See Xavier as a girl name
Xavier began as a place — a castle in Basque country whose name meant simply the new house — and traveled the world on the back of one sixteenth-century missionary's surname. It has been said in Basque, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English for centuries, and it has been on American birth records since the nineteenth century without ever crowding a classroom.
How old is the name Xavier?
Xavier first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Xavier alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 157,000 people named Xavier are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Xavier most popular?
Xavier peaked in 2007, reaching #68 nationally. Today it ranks #108, 40 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Where it comes from
From Etxeberria to Xavier
The story of Xavier
The name comes from the castle of Xavier in Navarre, in the Basque-speaking north of Spain, whose name is the Basque etxeberria — the new house. Francis Xavier, the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary born there, carried that place name as his surname; through Catholic devotion to him it became a given name across Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Spanish speakers reshaped it as Javier, Italians as Saverio, while French and Portuguese kept the X. It arrived in American records in the nineteenth century and has stayed, with its strongest presence in states where Spanish-language naming traditions run deep.
Meaning
the new house
From Basque etxe ("house") plus berri ("new"), the name of the family castle in Navarre — a place name that became a surname and then a first name.
How the name formed
- Etxeberria
- Xabier
- Xavier
- Javier
Related forms: Javier · Xabier · Saverio · Xavier · Xavier · Ksawery
Pronouncing Xavier
ZAY-vee-er
Also commonly egz-AY-vee-er, especially in older and Catholic usage; both are correct and you will hear both. The Spanish Javier is ha-vee-AIR.
Nicknames for Xavier
High
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
- 1886
- Most boys named
- 20086,290 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #68reached in 2007
- Change vs 2023
- −5.9%3,232 in 2025, from 3,435
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.
Xavier in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Javier in Spanish — same name
- Xabier in Basque — same name
- Saverio in Italian — same name
- Xavier in Catalan — same name
- Xavier in French — same name
- Ksawery in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Xaviers among us
people named Xavier are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 528 born in 2025 was named Xavier
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 Jimmie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Xavier's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jimmie climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jimmie's path sketches the road Xavier is walking now.
Xavier is coming down from a big peak (#68 in 2007). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Xavier is headed
Xavier 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.
Xavier beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Xavier in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan and Basque with only a small shift in sound or spelling — useful in a bilingual family.
- Documented for centuries as a surname and a given name, with an unbroken run on American records since the nineteenth century.
- Familiar to everyone without being common in any one classroom.
- Several established short forms already in real use: Xav, Xavi, and simply X.
- One of the few widely known first names beginning with X, so the initial is distinctive without being invented.
- Two pronunciations circulate — ZAY-vee-er and egz-AY-vee-er — so he will spend some of his life choosing one and correcting the other. Neither is wrong, which is exactly why the question keeps coming up.
- The X opening invites phonetic respellings: Zavier, Xzavier and Exavier all turn up on forms. Expect to spell it aloud fairly often.
- The name is closely tied to Francis Xavier and Jesuit history, and to institutions named for him. For many families that lineage is the appeal; for others it is a connection worth knowing about in advance.
- Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men has made the name recognizable to a couple of generations of readers — a mild, mostly friendly association rather than a burden.
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What they receive
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Xavier
Masculine · #108 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Xaviers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 157,000 people named Xavier are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Xavier in 2025?
- Xavier ranks #108 among US boy names in 2025, with 3,232 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Xavier?
- About 1 in every 528 US boys born in 2025 was named Xavier — 3,232 in all.
- Will my child share the name Xavier with classmates?
- Xavier will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Xavier
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Damian#109 · Vincent#107 · Dominic#106 · Easton#110 · Amir#105 · River#111 · Eli#104 · Nicholas#112
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Xavier? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Xavier and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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