Evan

254,255 people in America carry this name — ranked #214 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it EH vuhn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

EH1 V AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 254,255 2020 Census
  • Rank #214 Common
  • Per 100,000 84.2 about 1 in 1,304 people
  • As a surname 1,675 ranked #16,626 the other way round

Where Evan comes from and what it means

Celtic in origin, reading literally as “young warrior”.

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 Evan has been given

278,379 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2007, with 10,405 of them.

80 90 00 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.

Middle names that fit Evan

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

Better avoided

  • Evan Eric — same opening
  • Evan Nicholas — runs together
  • Evan Edward — 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.

Is Evan used for boys or for girls?

98.4% men
4,167 women

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

The same name abroad

  • Yvain Breton
  • Ywain Welsh
  • Eoghan Gaelic
  • Yueins French
  • Eoghania Irish

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.

Names with the same rhythm as Evan

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.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher 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