Orest
A masculine Slavic name meaning "courageous" or "mountaineer".
Name Census estimates that about 203 living Americans carry the first name Orest. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Orest today is around 54 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Orest births was 1952 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Orest. 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 Orest with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
203
~ 1 in 1,688,445 Americans
Peak year
1952
19 babies that year
Average age
54
years old
2024 SSA rank
#9,606
Tracked since 1916
Census
Orest in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 644 people with the first name Orest, which placed it at #17,227 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
#17,227
National first-name rank
People counted
644
644 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
96.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Orest
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Orest is White at 96.4%. The next largest groups are Black (1.1%) and Hispanic (1.1%). 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 Orest 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 Orest at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White96.4% · 621
- Black or African American1.1% · 7
- Hispanic or Latino1.1% · 7
- Two or more races0.9% · 6
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.3% · 2
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 1
Popularity
Orest: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Orest from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 132 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
Orest 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 Orest during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Orests live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. New York, New Jersey, Illinois recorded the most babies named Orest, while Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 12 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Orest
The name Orest originated from the Greek name Orestes, which is derived from the Greek word "oros" meaning "mountain" and "estao" meaning "to stand." This suggests that the name may have been associated with someone who lived in or came from a mountainous region. The name Orestes first appeared in Greek mythology, where it was the name of the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Orest is from the 10th century AD, when it was used by Kievan Rus' princes. The name was popular among the ruling elite of the Kievan Rus' and later spread to other Slavic regions. In the 11th century, the name was also used by the Byzantine Emperor Orest I, who ruled from 1057 to 1059.
The name Orest has been borne by several notable historical figures throughout the centuries. One of the earliest was Orest Adamovich, a 16th-century Belarusian writer and translator who played a significant role in the development of Belarusian literature. Another notable figure was Orest Kiprensky, a 19th-century Russian painter known for his portraits of Russian aristocracy and intellectuals, including Alexander Pushkin.
In the 20th century, Orest Subtelny was a prominent Canadian historian of Ukrainian descent, best known for his work on the history of Ukraine. He was born in 1941 and passed away in 2016. Orest Patsovsky was a Ukrainian-American architect and artist who designed several notable buildings in New York City, including the Ukrainian Institute of America. He was born in 1914 and died in 1998.
Another notable figure with the name Orest was Orest Somov, a Soviet-Russian composer and violinist who lived from 1923 to 1994. He composed several works for violin and orchestra, as well as chamber music and film scores.
People
Orest + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Orest as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with O
Other first names starting with O with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Orest: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Orest?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 203 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Orest 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 1,688,445 US residents.
Is Orest a common name?
We classify Orest as "Very Rare". It ranks above 74.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 294 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Orest most popular?
The single biggest year for Orest was 1952, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Orest is about 54 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Orest in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 644 people with the name Orest, or 0.21 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17,227 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 Orest 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 Orest?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Orest appears almost entirely male. Of the 635 people counted with this name, 99.2% 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 Orest?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Orest is White at 96.4%. The next largest groups are Black (1.1%) and Hispanic (1.1%). 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 Orest most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Orest in the 2020 Census, accounting for 96.4% (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 Orest in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Orest a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Orest 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 Orest still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Orest 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 Orest 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 the name Orest?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Orest, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.