Felix

80,554 people in America carry this name — ranked #659 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it FEE lihks

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

F IY1 L IH0 K S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 80,554 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 26.7 about 1 in 4,115 people
  • As a surname 40,449 ranked #837 the other way round

Where Felix comes from and what it means

Latin in origin, reading literally as “happy”.

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.

Felix through the years

74,101 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2019, with 1,704 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more 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 Felix

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

Better avoided

  • Felix Steven — runs together
  • Felix Stephen — runs together
  • Felix Scott — 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.

A name and a surname

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

Is Felix used for boys or for girls?

98.7% men
1,052 women

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

How Felix is spelled

Felix is how 37% of them spell it — 217,170 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 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.

This name in other languages

  • Feliz Portuguese
  • Felise French
  • Feliks Russian
  • Felice Italian
  • Felicie French

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.

Where the name Felix is most common in the US

In New Mexico the name is given 2.1 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Mexico ×2.1
  • New York ×1.8
  • Texas ×1.6
  • California ×1.5
  • Colorado ×1.5

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 Adult Height

Open Adult Height 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 Latin origin