Casper
Derived from the Biblical name Caspar, meaning "wealthy" or "treasurer".
Name Census estimates that about 3,424 living Americans carry the first name Casper. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Casper today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Casper births was 2024 (273 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Casper. 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 Casper with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
3.4K
~ 1 in 100,103 Americans
Peak year
2024
273 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2024 SSA rank
#879
Tracked since 1880
Census
Casper in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,653 people with the first name Casper, which placed it at #6,130 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
#6,130
National first-name rank
People counted
2.7K
2,653 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Casper
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Casper is White at 68.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.8%) and Black (9.2%). 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 Casper 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 Casper at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.3% · 1,812
- Hispanic or Latino9.8% · 260
- Black or African American9.2% · 243
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.3% · 168
- Two or more races5.2% · 137
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 33
Gender
Gender distribution for Casper
Out of the 5,972 babies given the name Casper since 1880, 99.6% 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.
Casper as a male name
- Ranked #879 in 2024
- 273 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (273 births)
Casper as a female name
- Ranked #15,641 in 2023
- 5 female births in 2023
- Peak: 2019 (6 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Casper leans strongly male. 2,562 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 88 female bearers (3.3%).
Popularity
Casper: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Casper from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 1,020 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
Casper 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 Casper during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Caspers live
The SSA's state-level files cover 30 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Casper, while Utah, Maryland, Iowa recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 68 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Casper
The name Casper is of Persian origin, derived from the word 'Gaspar' or 'Caspar', meaning 'treasure bearer'. It was one of the traditional names given to the three wise men or Magi who visited the infant Jesus in the Christian Nativity story.
The name gained popularity across Europe during the Middle Ages, with its earliest recorded use dating back to the 4th century AD. It was particularly prevalent in regions with strong Christian traditions, such as Germany, France, and the Low Countries.
One of the earliest known historical figures with the name Casper was Caspar Schlick, a 15th-century German Renaissance humanist and mathematician. Born in 1456, he made significant contributions to the fields of astronomy and cartography.
Another notable Casper was Caspar de Crayer, a 17th-century Flemish Baroque painter known for his religious works and portraiture. He was born in Antwerp in 1584 and died in Ghent in 1669.
In the 18th century, Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romantic landscape painter, was born in 1774 in Greifswald, Pomerania. His iconic paintings, such as 'Wanderer above the Sea of Fog', became emblematic of the Romantic movement and its emphasis on the sublime in nature.
The 19th century saw the birth of Caspar René Gregory, a renowned French-American mathematician and geometer. Born in 1846 in Philadelphia, his work on the foundations of geometry and the development of projective geometry earned him widespread recognition.
In more recent history, Caspar Weinberger, an American politician and Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, served from 1981 to 1987. He was born in 1917 in San Francisco and played a pivotal role in shaping US defense policies during the Cold War era.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Casper
People
Casper + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Casper as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Casper: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Casper?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,424 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Casper 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 100,103 US residents.
Is Casper a common name?
We classify Casper as "Rare". It ranks above 95.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,972 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Casper most popular?
The single biggest year for Casper was 2024, when 273 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Casper is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Casper in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,653 people with the name Casper, or 0.88 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,130 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 Casper 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 Casper?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Casper leans strongly male. 2,562 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 88 female bearers (3.3%). 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 Casper?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Casper is White at 68.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.8%) and Black (9.2%). 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 Casper most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Casper in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.3% (1,812 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 Casper in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Casper a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Casper 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 Casper still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Casper 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 Casper 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 have Casper as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.