Leon

80,997 people in America carry this name — ranked #652 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.

Say it LEE ahn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

L IY1 AA0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 80,997 2020 Census
  • Rank #652 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 26.8 about 1 in 4,092 people
  • As a surname 85,611 ranked #362 the other way round

What Leon means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “lion”.

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.

Leon name popularity by year

171,834 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1924, with 2,713 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. 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 for Leon

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

Better avoided

  • Leon Nicholas — runs together
  • Leon Larry — same opening
  • Leon Luis — 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 from before the war

The year most children were called Leon was 1924. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Boys or girls: who is called Leon?

99.6% men
326 women

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

The same name abroad

  • Leo Ger.|Span
  • Leone Italian

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 Leon is most common

In the District of Columbia the name is given 2.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • the District of Columbia ×2.4
  • South Carolina ×1.6
  • New Mexico ×1.6
  • Louisiana ×1.5
  • Mississippi ×1.4

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.

How Leon is spelled

Leon is how 41% of them spell it — 199,353 people answer to the sound.

  • Leo 59%
  • Leon 41%

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 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.

Same syllables and stress as Leon

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.

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 Greek origin