Guy
A masculine French name meaning "leader of the people".
Name Census estimates that about 49,913 living Americans carry the first name Guy. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Guy today is around 60 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Guy births was 1957 (2,310 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Guy. 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 Guy with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Guy is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 470 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1950s, recent registration numbers for Guy have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
50K
~ 1 in 6,867 Americans
Peak year
1957
2,310 babies that year
Average age
60
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,561
Tracked since 1880
Census
Guy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 54,140 people with the first name Guy, which placed it at #849 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
#849
National first-name rank
People counted
54K
54,140 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
17.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Guy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Guy is White at 81.2%. The next largest groups are Black (8.9%) and Hispanic (4.2%). 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 Guy 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 Guy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.2% · 43,951
- Black or African American8.9% · 4,839
- Hispanic or Latino4.2% · 2,295
- Two or more races2.8% · 1,493
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 1,057
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 505
Gender
Gender distribution for Guy
Out of the 90,999 babies given the name Guy 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.
Guy as a male name
- Ranked #1,561 in 2024
- 111 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1957 (2,301 births)
Guy as a female name
- Ranked #11,065 in 1982
- 5 female births in 1982
- Peak: 1926 (18 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Guy appears almost entirely male. Of the 54,143 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Guy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Guy from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 19,212 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Guy 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 Guy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Guys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Guy, while Wyoming, Alaska, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,558 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Guy
The given name Guy is of French origin, derived from the Germanic name Wido or Wito, which means "wood" or "forest." The name gained popularity during the Middle Ages in Europe, particularly in France and England.
The name Guy is believed to have first appeared in the 7th century, as it was recorded in various historical documents and records from that time period. One of the earliest known references to the name can be found in the writings of the Venerable Bede, an English monk and scholar who lived in the 7th and 8th centuries.
In the 10th century, Guy of Arezzo, an Italian music theorist and Benedictine monk, was a notable figure who bore the name. He is credited with the development of the modern musical staff and the introduction of the system of solmization, which assigns syllables to notes.
Another famous Guy from history is Guy of Lusignan, who lived from around 1150 to 1194. He was a French nobleman and one of the leaders of the Third Crusade, fighting alongside Richard the Lionheart. His exploits during the Crusades were well-documented in various chronicles and accounts of the time.
In the 13th century, Guy de Montfort, a French nobleman and military leader, played a significant role in the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in southern France. He was born around 1170 and died in 1228.
In the realm of literature, Guy de Maupassant, a renowned French writer and one of the masters of the short story genre, was born in 1850 and died in 1893. He is known for his numerous short stories, including classics like "The Necklace" and "The Horla."
These are just a few examples of notable figures throughout history who bore the name Guy. The name has endured over the centuries, carrying its roots from the Germanic languages and retaining its connection to the natural world, particularly forests and woodlands.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Guy
People
Guy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Guy 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
Guy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Guy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 49,913 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Guy 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 6,867 US residents.
Is Guy a common name?
We classify Guy as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 90,999 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Guy most popular?
The single biggest year for Guy was 1957, when 2,310 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Guy is about 60 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Guy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 54,140 people with the name Guy, or 17.93 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #849 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 Guy 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 Guy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Guy appears almost entirely male. Of the 54,143 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 Guy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Guy is White at 81.2%. The next largest groups are Black (8.9%) and Hispanic (4.2%). 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 Guy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Guy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.2% (43,951 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 Guy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Guy a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Guy 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 Guy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Guy 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 Guy 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 Guy?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Guy at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.