Oswald

boys:

4.3k births since 1880

#1866 (59th percentile)

overall:

4.3k births since 1880

#4195 (46th percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Oswald is the #4,195 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 4,268 recorded births since 1880. This represents the 45.8% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 45.8% of all names). For boys, it ranks #1,866 (59.3% percentile) for all time with 4,268 births since 1880.

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

For boys, Oswald reached its peak popularity in 1916, achieving the 20.4% percentile (ranked #400) with 116 births per million. The name was most common in 1897, with 148 births per million (ranked 6.0% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2012, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Oswald ranks #852 for boys (6.5% percentile) with 35 births per million, which is 23.7% of its peak share of births.

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

1880 2023 18802023

Key Statistics

Total Births
4,268
Peak Births
107
Peak Year
1916
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
20.4%
Current Percentile
6.5%
Peak Rank
#400
Current Rank
#852
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Oswald

Our model has identified 8 different pronunciations for the name Oswald. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 36.2% confident that Oswald is pronounced as AHZ-wawld, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is AWZ-wawld, at 19.1% confidence, with 2 syllables.

AHZ-wawld (2 syllables)
36.2% confidence
AA1 Z W AO0 L D
AWZ-wawld (2 syllables)
Verified
19.1% confidence
AO1 Z W AO0 L D
AHZ-wuhld (2 syllables)
14.9% confidence
AA1 Z W AH0 L D
AHZ-WAWLD (2 syllables)
10.6% confidence
AA1 Z W AO1 L D
AWZ-wuhld (2 syllables)
6.4% confidence
AO1 Z W AH0 L D
AW-swawld (2 syllables)
4.3% confidence
AO1 S W AO0 L D
OHZ-wuhld (2 syllables)
4.3% confidence
OW1 Z W AH0 L D
OHZ-wawld (2 syllables)
4.3% confidence
OW1 Z W AO2 L D

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 Oswald? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Oswald. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Oswald, 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 AA1 Z W AO0 L D) 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.

© 2025 NamePlay.org

Made with ❤️ by Aaron J Becker