10 Boy Names Rising Fastest in the US (2020 → 2024)

June 5, 2026

The Social Security Administration's 2024 release gave us four years of fresh data to compare against the names parents were choosing in 2020. Some boy names took off quietly during the pandemic years. Here are the ten that climbed the most rank positions.

The list

We compared rank in 2020 vs rank in 2024 for every boy's name that ended 2024 in the US top 300. The biggest climbers:

1. Colter — from #972 in 2020 to #218 in 2024 (+754). A western-flavored surname-as-first-name, riding the same wave that pulled Stetson and Wyatt up.
2. Eithan — from #871 to #227 (+644). The "Eithan" spelling overtook the more traditional Ethan in growth rate, even though plain Ethan is still much more common overall.
3. Jaziel — from #579 to #225 (+354). A biblical name with Spanish-language popularity behind it.
4. Stetson — from #487 to #155 (+332). The cowboy aesthetic is real.
5. Ares — from #595 to #295 (+300). Mythology names continue to gain ground — Apollo, Atlas, and Ares are all up sharply since 2020.
6. Tatum — from #490 to #195 (+295). Used for both boys and girls; the boys' chart is climbing faster right now.
7. Koa — from #583 to #292 (+291). Hawaiian-origin, three letters, the kind of short modern name that does well on a roster.
8. Saint — from #571 to #282 (+289). Word names are nothing new, but "Saint" specifically took off after high-profile celebrity use.
9. Aziel — from #495 to #253 (+242). Another modern coinage with biblical feel; sometimes spelled Aziel, Azael, or Azarael.
10. Milan — from #431 to #231 (+200). Geography names that double as boys' names: Milan, Cairo, Dublin, all rising.

What's the pattern?

A few themes show up across the list:

• Surname-as-first-name is alive and well: Colter, Stetson, Tatum, Koa.
• Modern biblical and theophoric names with non-traditional spellings: Eithan, Jaziel, Aziel.
• Mythology, geography, and one-word concepts are filling slots that "classic" English names used to occupy: Ares, Milan, Saint.

Worth noting that the absolute volume here is small. The #218 boy in 2024 was given to roughly 1,400 babies — a real foothold, but a fraction of the ~12,000 babies named Liam (#1). Rising names take years to reach the top of the chart, but watching the trend lines early is half the fun.

See how all 10 names compare on a single chart with our name comparison tool, or browse the full 2024 rankings.

Data: U.S. Social Security Administration 1880–2024. Ranks are per-sex per-year. We exclude names that didn't have a 2020 rank (too small to meaningfully compare). The full rising and falling lists are on /trends/rising.html.