Yvan
A masculine name of Old French origin meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 485 living Americans carry the first name Yvan. It is a predominantly male name (99.0% of registrations). The average person named Yvan today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yvan births was 2020 (17 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yvan. 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 Yvan with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
485
~ 1 in 706,710 Americans
Peak year
2020
17 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,210
Tracked since 1961
Census
Yvan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,015 people with the first name Yvan, which placed it at #12,302 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
#12,302
National first-name rank
People counted
1.0K
1,015 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
42.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yvan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yvan is Hispanic at 42.4%. The next largest groups are White (23.9%) and Black (23.6%). 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 Yvan 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 Yvan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino42.4% · 430
- White23.9% · 243
- Black or African American23.6% · 240
- Asian and Pacific Islander8.3% · 84
- Two or more races1.8% · 18
Gender
Gender distribution for Yvan
Yvan leans heavily male at 99.0% of total registrations, but 5 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Yvan as a male name
- Ranked #7,210 in 2024
- 12 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (17 births)
Yvan as a female name
- Ranked #15,860 in 1996
- 5 female births in 1996
- Peak: 1996 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yvan leans strongly male. 971 people counted with this name were male (94.7%), compared with 54 female bearers (5.3%).
Popularity
Yvan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yvan from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 114 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1990s peak, Yvan remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yvan 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 Yvan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Yvans live
Origin
Meaning and history of Yvan
The given name Yvan has its origins in the Slavic languages, deriving from the Slavic root "ivan," which means "grace of God" or "God is gracious." This name first emerged during the Middle Ages in regions with significant Slavic cultural influence, such as Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Yvan can be found in the 12th-century Russian chronicles, where it was used as a variant spelling of the more common Ivan. Over time, the name spread to other Slavic-speaking areas, including parts of modern-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.
In the 14th century, the name Yvan gained prominence in France, where it was adopted as a French variant of the Slavic Ivan. This was likely due to cultural exchanges and intermarriages between French nobility and their Slavic counterparts during this period.
One of the earliest notable figures with the name Yvan was Yvan Kalita, a Grand Prince of Moscow who ruled from 1328 to 1340. He was a key figure in the consolidation of Russian lands and the expansion of Muscovite power.
Another historically significant bearer of the name was Yvan the Terrible, also known as Ivan IV Vasilyevich, who ruled as Tsar of Russia from 1533 to 1584. His reign was marked by both territorial expansion and brutal suppression of dissent.
In the realm of literature, the French writer Yvan Goll (1891-1950) was a prominent figure in the Surrealist movement. His works, which often explored themes of social justice and human rights, had a significant impact on 20th-century poetry.
The name Yvan also found its way into the world of science, with Yvan Petrovich Semyonov (1914-1994), a Soviet physicist who made notable contributions to the field of chemical kinetics and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1956.
In the world of sports, Yvan Cournoyer (born 1943) was a Canadian ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens and was part of the team's famous "Flying Frenchmen" line. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Yvan
People
Yvan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yvan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yvan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yvan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 485 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yvan 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 706,710 US residents.
Is Yvan a common name?
We classify Yvan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 84.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 498 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yvan most popular?
The single biggest year for Yvan was 2020, when 17 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yvan is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yvan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,015 people with the name Yvan, or 0.34 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,302 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 Yvan 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 Yvan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yvan leans strongly male. 971 people counted with this name were male (94.7%), compared with 54 female bearers (5.3%). 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 Yvan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yvan is Hispanic at 42.4%. The next largest groups are White (23.9%) and Black (23.6%). 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 Yvan most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Yvan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 42.4% (430 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 Yvan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yvan a male name?
Yes, 99.0% of people registered as Yvan 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 Yvan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yvan 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 Yvan 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 Yvan?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.