Armando
A masculine given name of Spanish origin meaning "soldier" or "army man".
Name Census estimates that about 66,382 living Americans carry the first name Armando. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Armando today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Armando births was 1997 (1,512 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Armando. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Armando with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Armando is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 372 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
66K
~ 1 in 5,163 Americans
Peak year
1997
1,512 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#566
Tracked since 1906
Census
Armando in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 102,572 people with the first name Armando, which placed it at #545 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#545
National first-name rank
People counted
103K
102,572 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
34.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
93.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Armando
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Armando is Hispanic at 93.6%. The next largest groups are White (3.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Armando described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Armando at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino93.6% · 96,016
- White3.4% · 3,521
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 1,992
- Black or African American0.6% · 613
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 235
- Two or more races0.2% · 195
Gender
Gender distribution for Armando
Out of the 76,342 babies given the name Armando since 1880, 99.5% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Armando as a male name
- Ranked #566 in 2024
- 516 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1997 (1,512 births)
Armando as a female name
- Ranked #17,838 in 2008
- 5 female births in 2008
- Peak: 1992 (17 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Armando appears almost entirely male. Of the 102,571 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Armando: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Armando from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 13,771 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Armando by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Armando during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Armandos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 40 states and territories. California, Texas, Arizona recorded the most babies named Armando, while Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,817 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Armando
The given name Armando has its origins in the Germanic languages, derived from the Old German name Ermanaric, which was formed from the words hari (army) and ric (ruler or power). It was later adopted into the Romance languages as Armando, which means "soldier" or "warrior."
In the 5th century, the name Armando was borne by Ermanaric, the semi-legendary king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled over a vast empire spanning from the Black Sea to the Baltic. He was a pivotal figure in the migration of the Germanic tribes, and his name is mentioned in various historical texts, including the works of Jordanes and Ammianus Marcellinus.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Armando can be found in the 9th century, when Armando I was the Count of Cerdanya, a region in the Pyrenees Mountains between modern-day Spain and France. He played a significant role in the defense of the region against the Moors during the Reconquista.
In the 11th century, Armando de Borgoña, a French nobleman and military leader, accompanied his brother-in-law, Alfonso VI of León and Castile, in the conquest of Toledo, helping to expand the Christian territories in the Iberian Peninsula.
During the Renaissance period, Armando di Peralta was an Italian painter and architect from Naples, active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is known for his work in the Certosa di San Martino, a Carthusian monastery in Naples.
In the 19th century, Armando Diaz was an Italian general who served as the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army during World War I. He is remembered for his role in the decisive Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918, which led to the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of the war on the Italian Front.
Armando Palacio Valdés was a Spanish novelist and literary critic, born in 1853. He is considered one of the most prominent representatives of the Spanish Realist movement in literature, and his works, such as "Marta y María" and "La alegría del capitán Ribot," explored social issues and the lives of ordinary people.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Armando
People
Armando + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Armando as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Armando: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Armando?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 66,382 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Armando going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 5,163 US residents.
Is Armando a common name?
We classify Armando as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 76,342 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Armando most popular?
The single biggest year for Armando was 1997, when 1,512 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Armando is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Armando in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 102,572 people with the name Armando, or 33.96 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #545 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Armando in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Armando?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Armando appears almost entirely male. Of the 102,571 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Armando?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Armando is Hispanic at 93.6%. The next largest groups are White (3.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Armando most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Armando in the 2020 Census, accounting for 93.6% (96,016 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Armando in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Armando a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Armando in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Armando still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Armando in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Armando can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Armando?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.