Connor

208,374 people in America carry this name — ranked #268 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it KAH nur

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K AA1 N ER0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 208,374 2020 Census
  • Rank #268 Common
  • Per 100,000 69.0 about 1 in 1,591 people

What Connor means and where it comes from

Celtic in origin, reading literally as “hound of slaughter”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Connor has been given

221,395 babies were given this name since 1913. The busiest year was 2004, with 10,115 of them.

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00s 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

What goes well after Connor

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Connor Robert — runs together
  • Connor Richard — runs together
  • Connor Christopher — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Boys or girls: who is called Connor?

99.3% men
1,524 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Same syllables and stress as Connor

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

How to spell Connor

Connor is how 90% of them spell it — 231,643 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

The same name elsewhere

  • Connaire Gaelic

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

The states where Connor is most common

In New Hampshire the name is given 2.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Hampshire ×2.5
  • Vermont ×2.3
  • Maine ×1.8
  • Alaska ×1.8
  • Connecticut ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it Compare Two Names

Put another name beside this one.

One of those is not in the census file.

Open Compare Two Names on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Celtic origin