Boy Names That Start With N

Boy names that start with N in the 2025 data

N is the thirteenth most common first letter for boys born in 2025: 57,887 of them, 3.4% of every boy in the file. It has climbed from fourteenth place a decade ago, and its share has barely moved: 3.3% then, 3.4% now.

This list holds the 36 of those names that reached the top 500 as a boy's name at some point since 1880 and are still given to boys rather than girls. The most common today is Noah, #2 with 20,358 boys in 2025. 3 of the 36 are in this year's top 100, and 32 appear in the 2025 file at all — which takes at least five births, the point below which a name is left out. Two other names starting with N are left out — Nellie and Nakia. Each reached the top 500 among boys at some point, but fewer than one in ten children given it over the last ten years was a boy. Together they account for 47,607 of those 57,887 boys — the remainder go to names that have never reached the top 500, each given to a handful of children.

The fastest climber among them is Niko, up from #629 in 2015 to #325 in 2025. Noel has gone the other way, from #375 to #478. The shortest name here is Nat at 3 letters, the longest Nathaniel at 9.