Cormac
Son of the charioteer, from Old Irish name elements.
Name Census estimates that about 3,507 living Americans carry the first name Cormac. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Cormac today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cormac births was 2014 (196 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cormac. 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 Cormac with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Cormac is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 14 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
3.5K
~ 1 in 97,734 Americans
Peak year
2014
196 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,254
Tracked since 1956
Census
Cormac in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,880 people with the first name Cormac, which placed it at #5,778 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
#5,778
National first-name rank
People counted
2.9K
2,880 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
91.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cormac
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cormac is White at 91.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.3%) and Hispanic (3.8%). 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 Cormac 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 Cormac at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White91.0% · 2,621
- Two or more races4.3% · 123
- Hispanic or Latino3.8% · 108
- Black or African American0.6% · 16
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.4% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.0% · 1
Popularity
Cormac: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cormac from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 1,607 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Cormac remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cormac 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 Cormac during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Cormacs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 25 states and territories. New York, California, Massachusetts recorded the most babies named Cormac, while Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 78 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cormac
The name Cormac originates from the Gaelic Irish language and has been in use since ancient times. It is derived from the Old Irish words "corp" meaning body and "macc" meaning son, literally translating to "son of chariot" or "son of the body".
In Irish mythology, Cormac was the name of several influential figures, including Cormac mac Airt, a legendary king of Ireland who reigned in the 3rd century AD. He is celebrated in the ancient Irish text known as the Annals of the Four Masters for his wisdom, leadership, and establishment of important laws.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Cormac Ua Liathain, an Irish king who ruled the Kingdom of Munster in the 9th century AD. He is mentioned in the Annals of Inisfallen, a chronicle of medieval Irish history.
During the Middle Ages, the name Cormac was popular among Irish nobility and clergy. Saint Cormac, also known as Cormac of Cashel, was a prominent 12th-century bishop and king of Munster who is credited with building the remarkable Cormac's Chapel at the Rock of Cashel.
In the 16th century, Cormac O'Connor was an Irish chieftain and one of the last inaugurated kings of Offaly, a kingdom in the modern-day Irish Midlands. He played a significant role in the Tudor conquest of Ireland and is mentioned in various historical records from that period.
Another notable bearer of the name was Cormac Ó Máille, a 16th-century Irish pirate queen who commanded a flotilla of galleys and defended her clan's territory along the western coast of Ireland against English forces and rival Irish clans.
In more recent centuries, Cormac McCarthy, born in 1933, is a renowned American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his works such as "All the Pretty Horses," "No Country for Old Men," and "The Road," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007.
Cormac Capitine, born in 1979, is a French hurdler and Olympic medalist who won the gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics and the silver medal in the same event at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
People
Cormac + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cormac 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
Cormac: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cormac?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,507 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cormac 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 97,734 US residents.
Is Cormac a common name?
We classify Cormac 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, 3,549 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cormac most popular?
The single biggest year for Cormac was 2014, when 196 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cormac is about 14 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cormac in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,880 people with the name Cormac, or 0.95 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,778 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 Cormac 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 Cormac?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cormac appears almost entirely male. Of the 2,876 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Cormac?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cormac is White at 91.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.3%) and Hispanic (3.8%). 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 Cormac most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cormac in the 2020 Census, accounting for 91.0% (2,621 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 Cormac in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cormac a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Cormac 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 Cormac still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cormac 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 Cormac 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 Americans are named Cormac?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Cormac at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.