Sailor
A unisex name derived from the occupation of a mariner or sailor.
Name Census estimates that about 4,008 living Americans carry the first name Sailor. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 84.0% of registrations being female. The average person named Sailor today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sailor births was 2016 (294 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sailor. 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 Sailor with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Sailor is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
4.0K
~ 1 in 85,518 Americans
Peak year
2016
294 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,341
Tracked since 1997
Census
Sailor in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,738 people with the first name Sailor, which placed it at #6,005 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
#6,005
National first-name rank
People counted
2.7K
2,738 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sailor
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sailor is White at 80.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (7.6%) and Two or More Races (6.6%). 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 Sailor 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 Sailor at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.8% · 2,213
- Hispanic or Latino7.6% · 207
- Two or more races6.6% · 181
- Black or African American3.0% · 83
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 30
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 24
Gender
Gender distribution for Sailor
Sailor leans heavily female at 84.0% of total registrations, but 646 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Sailor as a male name
- Ranked #2,731 in 2024
- 48 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (50 births)
Sailor as a female name
- Ranked #1,341 in 2024
- 170 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (245 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sailor leans strongly female. 2,264 people counted with this name were female (82.5%), compared with 479 male bearers (17.5%).
Popularity
Sailor: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Sailor from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,036 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Sailor remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Sailor 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 Sailor during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Sailors live
The SSA's state-level files cover 33 states and territories. Texas, California, Florida recorded the most babies named Sailor, while Kansas, New Jersey, West Virginia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 63 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Sailor
The name Sailor is an English given name derived from the occupation of a sailor or seafarer. It has its origins in the Middle English word "saillour," which in turn comes from the Old French word "saillier," meaning "to leap or spring forth." This is likely a reference to the leaping and springing motion of sailing ships on the waves.
The name Sailor first gained popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries, during the Age of Sail and the golden age of maritime exploration and trade. It was often given to boys born into seafaring families or coastal communities, as a nod to the family's maritime heritage or the importance of the sea in their lives.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Sailor can be found in the ship's logs of the British Royal Navy in the late 17th century. A sailor named Sailor Thomas is mentioned in the logs of the HMS Defiance in 1692, serving under the command of Captain Richard Shuttleworth.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, several notable individuals bore the name Sailor. Sailor Bunbury (1779-1857) was a British naval officer who served in the Napoleonic Wars and later became a Member of Parliament. Sailor Jack (1805-1880), whose full name was John Woodbine, was a famous American sailor and whaler from Nantucket, Massachusetts.
In the 20th century, the name Sailor gained broader cultural significance. Sailor Jerry (1911-1973), born Norman Keith Collins, was an American naval officer and tattoo artist who is credited with reviving and popularizing traditional American tattooing in the mid-20th century. Sailor Moon, the protagonist of the popular Japanese manga and anime series of the same name, debuted in 1992 and further popularized the name in Japanese popular culture.
Another notable individual with the name Sailor is Sailor Perue (1921-2022), an American World War II veteran and one of the last surviving Navajo Code Talkers, who used their native Navajo language to transmit coded messages during the war.
While the name Sailor is not as common today as it once was, it still holds a strong connection to the maritime heritage and seafaring traditions of many cultures around the world.
People
Sailor + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sailor as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Sailor: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sailor?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,008 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sailor 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 85,518 US residents.
Is Sailor a common name?
We classify Sailor as "Rare". It ranks above 96% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,042 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sailor most popular?
The single biggest year for Sailor was 2016, when 294 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sailor is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sailor in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,738 people with the name Sailor, or 0.91 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,005 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 Sailor 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 Sailor?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sailor leans strongly female. 2,264 people counted with this name were female (82.5%), compared with 479 male bearers (17.5%). 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 Sailor?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sailor is White at 80.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (7.6%) and Two or More Races (6.6%). 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 Sailor most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Sailor in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.8% (2,213 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 Sailor in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sailor a female name?
Yes, 84.0% of people registered as Sailor in the SSA data are female. 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 Sailor still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sailor 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 Sailor 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 are named Sailor?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.