Yul
Masculine
Yul entered American naming through one man with a shaved head and a very deliberate mystery about his origins. Yul Brynner was born in Vladivostok as Yuli — the Russian form of Julius — and he spent his career letting people believe several different stories about where he came from. The name arrived here almost entirely because of him.
How old is the name Yul?
Yul first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Yul alive today was born around 1971, making them about 54 years old. About 600 people named Yul are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yul most popular?
Yul peaked in 1960, reaching #1400 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 10,608 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yuli to Yul
The story of Yul
Brynner played the King of Siam on Broadway and then on film, took the part more than four thousand times over three decades, and won an Academy Award for it; he also carried a run of other roles that made his profile one of the most recognizable of his era. American parents who liked the sound had almost no other source for it, which is why the name's record is so tightly clustered around the years of his greatest visibility. Names that arrive this way tend to leave the same way, and this one has.
Meaningnot established
Not established
As a short form of the Russian Yuli, the line runs back to the Roman Julius, whose own meaning the Romans had already lost. As a name in its own right it has no derivation at all. It is also, coincidentally, the old Germanic word for the midwinter festival that English calls Yule, but nothing connects that to the personal name.
How the name formed
- Yuli
- Yul
Related forms: Yuli · Julius
Pronouncing Yul
YOOL
One syllable, rhyming with tool. Nothing about the spelling misleads an English reader, and there is nothing to shorten.
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
- 1957
- Most boys named
- 196032 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1400reached in 1960
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
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.
Yul in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yuli in Russian — related form
- Julius in Latin — related form
Yuls among us
people named Yul are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Yul
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 Timoteo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yul's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Timoteo climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Timoteo's path sketches the road Yul is walking now.
Yul 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
Yul beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yul in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three letters and one syllable — about as compact as a name gets.
- It is instantly recognizable to anyone over a certain age and completely fresh to everyone else.
- There is nothing to abbreviate and nothing to misspell.
- It sits well after almost any surname, being short and vowel-heavy.
- It belongs to one performer so completely that older Americans will think of nobody else.
- It is identical in sound to the midwinter festival, which will come up every December.
- Its origin cannot be given without explaining that it is a Russian short form of a Roman name whose meaning nobody knows.
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What they receive
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Yul
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yuls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Yul are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yul in 2025?
- Yul ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yul?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Yul — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yul with classmates?
- Yul will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yul
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yul? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yul and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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