Gunnar
A masculine name of Old Norse origin meaning "warrior" or "soldier".
Name Census estimates that about 16,982 living Americans carry the first name Gunnar. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Gunnar today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Gunnar births was 2015 (830 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Gunnar. 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 Gunnar with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
17K
~ 1 in 20,183 Americans
Peak year
2015
830 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#600
Tracked since 1893
Census
Gunnar in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,797 people with the first name Gunnar, which placed it at #1,993 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
#1,993
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
13,797 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Gunnar
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Gunnar is White at 87.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.3%) and Two or More Races (5.1%). 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 Gunnar 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 Gunnar at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.8% · 12,109
- Hispanic or Latino5.3% · 729
- Two or more races5.1% · 702
- Black or African American0.8% · 106
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 96
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.4% · 55
Gender
Gender distribution for Gunnar
Out of the 17,715 babies given the name Gunnar since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Gunnar as a male name
- Ranked #600 in 2024
- 474 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (825 births)
Gunnar as a female name
- Ranked #16,385 in 2019
- 5 female births in 2019
- Peak: 2004 (6 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Gunnar appears almost entirely male. Of the 13,805 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Gunnar: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Gunnar from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 6,697 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Gunnar remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Gunnar 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 Gunnar during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Gunnars live
The SSA's state-level files cover 49 states and territories. California, Texas, Washington recorded the most babies named Gunnar, while Vermont, Hawaii, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 306 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Gunnar
The given name Gunnar has its origins in Old Norse, the language spoken by the Viking seafarers of Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe during the Middle Ages. It is derived from the Old Norse elements "gunnr," meaning "battle" or "war," and "arr," meaning "warrior" or "soldier." The name can be interpreted to mean "warrior" or "battle-brave."
The earliest recorded instances of the name Gunnar can be traced back to the Icelandic sagas, which were written in the 13th and 14th centuries but often depicted events from several centuries earlier. In these Old Norse literary works, Gunnar appears as the name of various characters, including the heroic figure Gunnar Hámundarson from the Saga of the Volsungs.
The Viking age saw the spread of Old Norse names, including Gunnar, across Scandinavia, parts of the British Isles, and other areas influenced by Norse culture and settlement. As Christianity became more prevalent in the region, the name Gunnar continued to be used, though its meaning may have been reinterpreted to align with Christian values.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Gunnar. One of the earliest was Gunnar Eiríksson (c. 1088-1148), a Norwegian chieftain and one of the first settlers of Greenland. Another was Gunnar Grönvall (1563-1618), a Swedish military officer and nobleman who served as a field marshal during the Kalmar War.
During the 19th century, Gunnar Heiberg (1857-1929) was a prominent Norwegian author and playwright, known for works such as "The Balcony" and "Aunt Ulrikka." In the 20th century, Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974 for his research on the theory of optimal allocation of resources.
More recently, Gunnar Staalesen (born 1936) is a Norwegian crime fiction writer, best known for his series of novels featuring the private investigator Varg Veum. Another noteworthy figure is Gunnar Nordahl (1920-1995), a Finnish-Swedish writer and journalist who authored several novels and collections of short stories.
People
Gunnar + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Gunnar as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with G
Other first names starting with G with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Gunnar: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Gunnar?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 16,982 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Gunnar 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 20,183 US residents.
Is Gunnar a common name?
We classify Gunnar as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 17,715 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Gunnar most popular?
The single biggest year for Gunnar was 2015, when 830 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Gunnar is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Gunnar in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,797 people with the name Gunnar, or 4.57 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,993 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 Gunnar 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 Gunnar?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Gunnar appears almost entirely male. Of the 13,805 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Gunnar?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Gunnar is White at 87.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.3%) and Two or More Races (5.1%). 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 Gunnar most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Gunnar in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.8% (12,109 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 Gunnar in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Gunnar a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Gunnar 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 Gunnar still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Gunnar 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 Gunnar 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 share the name Gunnar?
Find out how many people share the name Gunnar on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.