Patrick

551,884 people in America carry this name — ranked #75 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it PAT rihk

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

P AE1 T R IH0 K — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 551,884 2020 Census
  • As a surname 57,411 ranked #575 the other way round

What Patrick means and where it comes from

Latin in origin, reading literally as “noble”.

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.

Patrick through the years

681,214 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1964, with 14,759 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 Patrick

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

Better avoided

  • Patrick Christopher — runs together
  • Patrick Kevin — runs together
  • Patrick Paul — 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.

Going quiet

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

Boys or girls: who is called Patrick?

99.9% men
780 women

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

This name in other languages

  • Pat Ir
  • Pate Scottish
  • Patie Scottish
  • Paddy Ir
  • Patriz German
  • Padrig Irish
  • Phadrig Irish
  • Patrice French
  • Patrizio Italian
  • Patrizia Italian
  • Patrikij Russian
  • Patricio Rom
  • Patricia Scottish
  • Patricius

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.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 81.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 8.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 4.7%
  • Two or more races — 2.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.7%
  • 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.

Full names people carry

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.

Names built the same way as Patrick

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 states where Patrick is most common

In Vermont the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Vermont ×1.9
  • Massachusetts ×1.8
  • New Hampshire ×1.7
  • the District of Columbia ×1.6
  • Alaska ×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