Curtis

159,667 people in America carry this name — ranked #350 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it KUR tuhs

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K ER1 T AH0 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 159,667 2020 Census
  • Rank #350 Common

The meaning and origin of Curtis

Reads literally as “an abbreviation of courteous”.

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 Curtis has been given

261,483 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1962, with 5,605 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. 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.

Middle names for Curtis

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

Better avoided

  • Curtis Christopher — same opening
  • Curtis Charles — same opening
  • Curtis Steven — runs together

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.

Going quiet

Curtis has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Is Curtis a boy's or a girl's name?

99.7% men
401 women

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

Where the name Curtis is most common in the US

In Mississippi the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Mississippi ×2.3
  • North Dakota ×1.9
  • Montana ×1.7
  • South Dakota ×1.7
  • Iowa ×1.7

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.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 65.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 26.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.1%
  • Two or more races — 3.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 1.1%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Names built the same way as Curtis

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.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet 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