Ramsey
One possessing a meadow located in a valley.
Name Census estimates that about 8,084 living Americans carry the first name Ramsey. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 74.9% of registrations being male. The average person named Ramsey today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ramsey births was 2016 (265 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ramsey. 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 Ramsey with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
8.1K
~ 1 in 42,399 Americans
Peak year
2016
265 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,757
Tracked since 1894
Census
Ramsey in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,790 people with the first name Ramsey, which placed it at #3,191 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
#3,191
National first-name rank
People counted
6.8K
6,790 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ramsey
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ramsey is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Black (11.4%). 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 Ramsey 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 Ramsey at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.5% · 4,382
- Hispanic or Latino13.9% · 944
- Black or African American11.4% · 777
- Two or more races5.6% · 378
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 215
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 94
Gender
Gender distribution for Ramsey
Ramsey is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 8,707 total registrations, 6,524 (74.9%) were male and 2,183 (25.1%) were female.
Ramsey as a male name
- Ranked #1,757 in 2024
- 94 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2017 (152 births)
Ramsey as a female name
- Ranked #2,544 in 2024
- 70 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (120 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Ramsey on both sides of the split. Of the 6,794 people counted with this name, 5,127 were male (75.5%) and 1,667 were female (24.5%).
Popularity
Ramsey: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ramsey from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,012 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ramsey remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ramsey 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 Ramsey during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ramseys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 33 states and territories. Texas, California, Georgia recorded the most babies named Ramsey, while Oregon, Kansas, Arkansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 98 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ramsey
The name Ramsey originates from the Old English language, derived from the Old English words "ram" meaning "ram" and "ey" meaning "island" or "meadow by water." It is believed to have originated in the Anglo-Saxon period, around the 5th to 11th centuries AD.
The name was initially a place name, referring to a meadow or island where rams grazed. One of the earliest recorded uses of the name was in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentioned several places named Ramsey or Ramesie in England.
Ramsey has a long history of association with religious figures and institutions. In the 7th century, Saint Ramsey founded a monastery on the island of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, England. The Ramsey Abbey, which was established in 969 AD, became one of the wealthiest and most influential monasteries in England during the Middle Ages.
One of the earliest notable historical figures with the name Ramsey was Ramsey the Literate, a 10th-century English abbot and scholar at the Ramsey Abbey. He was known for his extensive knowledge of literature and his efforts in preserving and copying manuscripts.
Another significant figure was Thomas Ramsey (c. 1285-1349), an English philosopher and theologian who was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and later became the Chancellor of Oxford University. He made important contributions to the development of scholastic philosophy and logic.
In the 16th century, John Ramsey (c. 1520-1584) was an English diplomat and Member of Parliament who served as the ambassador to France during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
During the American Revolutionary War, Sir Andrew Ramsey (1740-1824) was a Scottish-American loyalist and military officer who served in the British Army and later became the first lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia after the war.
Another notable figure was Michael Ramsey (1904-1988), an English Anglican bishop who served as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974, playing a significant role in the ecumenical movement and the Anglican Communion during his tenure.
People
Ramsey + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ramsey as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ramsey: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ramsey?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8,084 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ramsey 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 42,399 US residents.
Is Ramsey a common name?
We classify Ramsey as "Rare". It ranks above 97.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8,707 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ramsey most popular?
The single biggest year for Ramsey was 2016, when 265 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ramsey is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ramsey in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,790 people with the name Ramsey, or 2.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,191 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 Ramsey 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 Ramsey?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Ramsey on both sides of the split. Of the 6,794 people counted with this name, 5,127 were male (75.5%) and 1,667 were female (24.5%). 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 Ramsey?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ramsey is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.9%) and Black (11.4%). 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 Ramsey most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ramsey in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.5% (4,382 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 Ramsey in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ramsey a male name?
Yes, 74.9% of people registered as Ramsey 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 Ramsey still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ramsey 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 Ramsey 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 Ramsey?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Ramsey, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.