Leo

girls:

2.1k births since 1880

#3750 (34th percentile)

boys:

243.9k births since 1880

#155 (97th percentile)

overall:

246k births since 1880

#323 (96th percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Leo is the #323 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 245,997 recorded births since 1880. This represents the 95.8% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 95.8% of all names). For boys, it ranks #155 (96.6% percentile) for all time with 243,902 births since 1880. For girls, it ranks #3,750 (34.4% percentile) for all time with 2,095 births since 1880.

Leo has appeared in U.S. birth records since the beginning of our dataset in 1880

The name Leo has been given almost exclusively to boys, with 99.1% of all recorded births being male.

For boys, Leo reached its peak popularity in 2023, achieving the 98.1% percentile (ranked #18) with 4,434 births per million. The name was most common in 1903, with 4,918 births per million (ranked 84.2% percentile). Despite a peak around 1995, the name has seen a recent rise in popularity for boys. Currently, Leo ranks #18 for boys (98.1% percentile) with 4,434 births per million, which is 90.2% of its peak share of births.

For girls, Leo reached its peak popularity in 1918, achieving the 9.7% percentile (ranked #533) with 52 births per million. The name was most common in 1896, with 87 births per million (ranked 5.2% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2011, the popularity of this name for girls has been increasing. Currently, Leo ranks #924 for girls (2.4% percentile) with 16 births per million, which is 18.3% of its peak share of births.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Leo".

1880 2023 18802023

Key Statistics

Total Births
2,095
Peak Births
62
Peak Year
1918
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
9.7%
Current Percentile
2.4%
Peak Rank
#533
Current Rank
#924
Female statistics
Total Births
243,902
Peak Births
8,282
Peak Year
2023
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
98.1%
Current Percentile
98.1%
Peak Rank
#18
Current Rank
#18
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Leo

Our model found one way to pronounce the name Leo. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 100.0% confident that Leo is pronounced as LEE-oh, which has 2 syllables.

2
100.0%
LEE-oh (2 syllables)
Verified
100.0% confidence
L IY1 OW0

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Leo? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Leo. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Leo, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like L IY1 OW0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

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