Spiro
Of Greek origin, representing a coiled serpent or spiral shape.
Name Census estimates that about 686 living Americans carry the first name Spiro. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Spiro today is around 45 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Spiro births was 1970 (26 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Spiro. 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.
People living today
686
~ 1 in 499,642 Americans
Peak year
1970
26 babies that year
Average age
45
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,915
Tracked since 1913
Census
Spiro in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,151 people with the first name Spiro, which placed it at #11,254 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
#11,254
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2K
1,151 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
94.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Spiro
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Spiro is White at 94.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (2.2%) and Two or More Races (1.6%). 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 Spiro 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 Spiro at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White94.5% · 1,088
- Hispanic or Latino2.2% · 25
- Two or more races1.6% · 18
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 11
- Black or African American0.8% · 9
Popularity
Spiro: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Spiro from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 182 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Spiro 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 Spiro during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Spiros live
Origin
Meaning and history of Spiro
The name Spiro originated from the Greek language and culture, dating back to ancient times. It is derived from the Greek word "speira," which means "coil" or "spiral." This connection to the spiral shape may have been influenced by the symbolic representation of the cycle of life or the coiling motion of serpents, which held significant meaning in ancient Greek mythology.
In Greek mythology, Spiro was a minor deity associated with the spring season and the renewal of life. He was often depicted as a young man adorned with flowers and holding a spiral-shaped staff, representing the cyclical nature of the seasons and the eternal cycle of growth and decay.
The earliest recorded use of the name Spiro dates back to the 5th century BCE, when it was mentioned in a Greek play by Euripides. It was a relatively uncommon name during ancient Greek times but gained popularity in certain regions, particularly in the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Spiro was Spiro of Byzantium, a 3rd-century Greek philosopher and mathematician. He is credited with developing a method for calculating the volume of a sphere, which became known as the "Spiro formula."
In the Middle Ages, the name Spiro was relatively rare but continued to be used in some parts of the Byzantine Empire. One notable figure from this period was Spiro Doukas, a 12th-century Byzantine nobleman and military commander who played a significant role in the conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks.
During the Renaissance, the name Spiro gained some popularity in Italy, where it was often spelled as "Spirio" or "Spirione." Spirio Speroni, an Italian Renaissance humanist and playwright born in 1500, was a notable figure with this name.
In the 19th century, the name Spiro became more widely used in Greece and among Greek communities around the world. One prominent individual was Spiro Samara, a Greek revolutionary who fought against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s.
Another notable figure was Spiro Pitsios, a Greek merchant and philanthropist born in 1839, who made significant contributions to the development of education and healthcare in Greece.
People
Spiro + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Spiro 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
Spiro: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Spiro?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 686 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Spiro 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 499,642 US residents.
Is Spiro a common name?
We classify Spiro as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,011 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Spiro most popular?
The single biggest year for Spiro was 1970, when 26 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Spiro is about 45 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Spiro in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,151 people with the name Spiro, or 0.38 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,254 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 Spiro 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 Spiro?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Spiro appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,154 people counted with this name, 99.6% 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 Spiro?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Spiro is White at 94.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (2.2%) and Two or More Races (1.6%). 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 Spiro most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Spiro in the 2020 Census, accounting for 94.5% (1,088 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 Spiro in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Spiro a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Spiro 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 Spiro still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Spiro 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 Spiro 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 Spiro?
See how many people have the name Spiro on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.