Ozzie
A diminutive of Ozias, derived from the Hebrew name Uzzi meaning "power; strength".
Name Census estimates that about 2,835 living Americans carry the first name Ozzie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 77.0% of registrations being male. The average person named Ozzie today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ozzie births was 2024 (190 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ozzie. 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 Ozzie with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.8K
~ 1 in 120,901 Americans
Peak year
2024
190 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,413
Tracked since 1887
Census
Ozzie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,069 people with the first name Ozzie, which placed it at #7,393 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
#7,393
National first-name rank
People counted
2.1K
2,069 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
36.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ozzie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ozzie is White at 36.1%. The next largest groups are Black (31.9%) and Hispanic (26.0%). 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 Ozzie 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 Ozzie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White36.1% · 747
- Black or African American31.9% · 659
- Hispanic or Latino26.0% · 538
- Two or more races3.6% · 74
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 26
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 25
Gender
Gender distribution for Ozzie
Ozzie is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 4,010 total registrations, 3,088 (77.0%) were male and 922 (23.0%) were female.
Ozzie as a male name
- Ranked #1,413 in 2024
- 131 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2023 (136 births)
Ozzie as a female name
- Ranked #2,838 in 2024
- 59 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (63 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ozzie leans strongly male. 1,835 people counted with this name were male (88.7%), compared with 234 female bearers (11.3%).
Popularity
Ozzie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ozzie 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 815 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
Ozzie 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 Ozzie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ozzies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 21 states and territories. California, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Ozzie, while Wisconsin, South Carolina, North Carolina recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 45 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ozzie
The name Ozzie is derived from the Old English name Oswald, which means "divine power" or "ruling power." It is a diminutive form of the name Oswald, originating from the combination of the Old English elements "os" meaning "god" and "weald" meaning "rule."
The name Oswald has its roots in Anglo-Saxon England and was particularly popular during the medieval period. One of the earliest recorded examples of the name can be found in the Venerable Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," where he mentions King Oswald of Northumbria, who reigned from 634 to 642 AD.
In the 9th century, the name Oswald gained further prominence with the veneration of Saint Oswald, the King of Northumbria, who was renowned for his devotion to Christianity and his efforts to spread the faith in the region. His relics were revered, and several churches were dedicated to him throughout England.
During the Middle Ages, the name Oswald remained popular among the nobility and aristocracy of England. One notable figure was Oswald, the Earl of Northumbria, who lived in the late 11th century and played a significant role in the conflicts between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons.
As the name Oswald evolved over time, the diminutive form Ozzie emerged as a shorter and more informal variant. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Ozzie can be found in the 16th century, when it appeared in various historical records and documents.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Ozzie. One of the most famous was Ozzie Nelson, an American actor, and television producer who lived from 1906 to 1975. He starred in the popular television series "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" with his family, which ran from 1952 to 1966.
Another well-known Ozzie was Ozzie Smith, an American baseball player who played for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1982 to 1996. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest defensive players in the history of the sport.
In the realm of music, Ozzie Osbourne, better known as Ozzy Osbourne, is a legendary British singer and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He was born in 1948 and has had a influential career spanning over five decades.
Ozzie Newington, born in 1931, was an American actor and comedian best known for his role as the lovable handyman, Rollo, in the sitcom "Three's Company" during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Lastly, Ozzie Guillen, born in 1964, is a former Major League Baseball player and manager who managed the Chicago White Sox from 2004 to 2011, leading them to a World Series championship in 2005.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Ozzie
People
Ozzie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ozzie 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
Ozzie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ozzie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,835 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ozzie 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 120,901 US residents.
Is Ozzie a common name?
We classify Ozzie as "Rare". It ranks above 95% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,010 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ozzie most popular?
The single biggest year for Ozzie was 2024, when 190 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ozzie is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ozzie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,069 people with the name Ozzie, or 0.69 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #7,393 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 Ozzie 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 Ozzie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ozzie leans strongly male. 1,835 people counted with this name were male (88.7%), compared with 234 female bearers (11.3%). 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 Ozzie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ozzie is White at 36.1%. The next largest groups are Black (31.9%) and Hispanic (26.0%). 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 Ozzie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ozzie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 36.1% (747 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 Ozzie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ozzie a male name?
Yes, 77.0% of people registered as Ozzie 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 Ozzie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ozzie 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 Ozzie 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 Ozzie?
Want to know how many people share the name Ozzie? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.