Bun
Variant of the word 'bun', referring to a rolled bread product.
Name Census estimates that about 10 living Americans carry the first name Bun. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Bun today is around 43 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Bun births was 1927 (7 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Bun. 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.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Bun. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
10
~ 1 in 34,275,434 Americans
Peak year
1927
7 babies that year
Average age
43
years old
1986 SSA rank
#6,862
Tracked since 1892
Census
Bun in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 458 people with the first name Bun, which placed it at #21,926 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
#21,926
National first-name rank
People counted
458
458 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
87.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Bun
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bun is Asian/Pacific Islander at 87.3%. The next largest groups are White (8.3%) and Black (2.4%). 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 Bun 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 Bun at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander87.3% · 400
- White8.3% · 38
- Black or African American2.4% · 11
- Two or more races1.1% · 5
- Hispanic or Latino0.9% · 4
Popularity
Bun: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Bun from the 1890s through to the 1980s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 10 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Bun 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 Bun during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Bun
The name Bun has its origins in the ancient Sumerian language, one of the earliest known written languages, dating back to around 3500 BC. In Sumerian, the word "bun" referred to a type of bread or cake made from grains, which was a staple food in the region. Over time, the name likely evolved from this culinary reference.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Bun can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem dating back to around 2100 BC. In the epic, one of the characters is referred to as "Bun-Ene," which roughly translates to "the son of the high priestess."
During the ancient Egyptian period, around 1500 BC, there are records of a high-ranking official named Bun-Anu, who served as a governor in the region of Thebes. This suggests that the name had spread from Mesopotamia to neighboring civilizations.
In ancient Greek mythology, there is a character named Bunes, who was a son of the god Hermes and the nymph Herse. Bunes was said to have been a skilled orator and teacher, which may have influenced the name's association with wisdom and knowledge in some cultures.
In the 6th century AD, there was a famous Byzantine scholar and mathematician named Bun-Amir, who made significant contributions to the field of geometry and was known for his work on conic sections.
During the Middle Ages, the name Bun was relatively uncommon in Europe, but it did appear in some historical records. One notable figure was Bun the Venerable, a 12th-century Benedictine monk and scholar from England, who was renowned for his translations of ancient Greek texts.
In the 16th century, there was a Dutch explorer named Bun van der Straaten, who was part of the famous expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan that first circumnavigated the globe. He is credited with being one of the first Europeans to set foot on the islands of Guam and the Philippines.
Another notable figure with the name Bun was Bun Shih, a Chinese philosopher and poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century AD. He is celebrated for his profound insights into the nature of existence and his influential contributions to the development of Chan (Zen) Buddhism.
People
Bun + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Bun as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Bun: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Bun?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Bun 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 34,275,434 US residents.
Is Bun a common name?
We classify Bun as "Very Rare". It ranks above 28.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 22 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Bun most popular?
The single biggest year for Bun was 1927, when 7 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Bun is about 43 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Bun in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 458 people with the name Bun, or 0.15 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #21,926 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 Bun 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 Bun?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Bun on both sides of the split. Of the 463 people counted with this name, 312 were male (67.4%) and 151 were female (32.6%). 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 Bun?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Bun is Asian/Pacific Islander at 87.3%. The next largest groups are White (8.3%) and Black (2.4%). 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 Bun most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Bun in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.3% (400 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 Bun in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Bun a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Bun 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 Bun still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Bun 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 Bun 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 many people are called Bun?
You can see how many people share the name Bun on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.