Drew

80,031 people in America carry this name — ranked #662 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it DROO

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

D R UW1 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 80,031 2020 Census
  • Rank #662 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 26.5 about 1 in 4,142 people
  • As a surname 22,649 ranked #1,544 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Drew

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “skilful”.

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 Drew has been given

83,444 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1995, with 2,458 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. 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 Drew

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Drew David — same opening
  • Drew William — runs together
  • Drew Daniel — 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.

A name and a surname

Drew is carried in front of the comma and behind it — thousands of Americans have it as a surname too.

Is Drew used for boys or for girls?

91.4% men
6,904 women

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

Same syllables and stress as Drew

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

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

The most common 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.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 85.8%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 4.2%
  • Two or more races — 3.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.2%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

Where in America Drew is thickest on the ground

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

  • Iowa ×2.3
  • North Dakota ×2.3
  • Nebraska ×2.0
  • South Dakota ×1.9
  • Kansas ×1.8

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 Full-Name Estimator

Add a surname and see how many Americans carry the two together.

Open Full-Name Estimator 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 Teutonic origin