Boy Names Starting With S

Ranks are each name's overall position among all 2025 boy names, so the gaps between rows are real — the names in between simply start with other letters. Want a random shortlist instead? Spin S boy names in the generator, or browse the full top 100 boy names.

How common S names are

In the 2025 top 1,000 for boys, S supplies 47 names and 4.4% of the births, which places it 9th of the 26 initials by share. From Sebastian at overall #16 (8,605 births) down to Shai, the 50th name, at #1,032 (215), the first count on the table is 40.0 times the last.

That 4.4% is S's births inside the 2025 top 1,000 divided by the births of all 1,000 names — the convention the reading ranks and counts guide walks through — and the 47-name count is taken at that same depth, not at the 50-name depth of the table above.

S names across the decades

In 1955, 7 boy names starting with S sat inside the top 200, led by Steven (#10); in 2015 the count was 6, led by Samuel (#23). The largest of the 7 counts is 11 (1975) and the smallest is 6 (2015). Cut to the same top-200 depth, the 2025 list holds 6 S names, led by Sebastian at #16. 3 different names hold the lead across those snapshots: Steven, Scott, and Samuel. 2 of the 50 names on the 2025 table appear in every one of the 7 snapshot top-200 lists: Samuel and Steven.

S names held 5.0% of the top-200 births for boys in 1955 and 3.0% in 2015; at the same depth in 2025 the figure is 3.9%. The first-letter trends guide sets S's share beside the other 25 initials for every snapshot year from 1955 to 2015, for both sexes.

Faded and new

Set the 2025 table against the 7 snapshots and 4 names drop out — each inside a snapshot's top 200, none on this year's top 50: Shaun (1985, best #120 in 1985), Steve (1955–1975, best #55 in 1965), Shannon (1975, best #101 in 1975), and Stuart (1955, 1965, best #189 in 1955). The years in parentheses are the snapshot years whose top 200 included the name; the most recent of them to chart is Shaun, in 1985.

Of the 50 names above, 35 appear in none of the 7 snapshot top-200 lists: the first 12 by rank are Stetson (#136), Simon (#230), Shepherd (#246), Saint (#267), Shiloh (#278), Sonny (#298), Sullivan (#314), Sutton (#332), Sterling (#346), Santino (#353), Solomon (#422), and Sylas (#440), and the remaining 23 follow in the table above.

Absence is relative to the committed depth: the snapshot files stop at rank 200 and the 2025 letter file stops at S's 50th name (#1,032), so a faded name may still be registered in 2025 below that point, and a newcomer may have been registered in a snapshot year below rank 200.

Shape of the list

Four letters or fewer describes 6 of the 50 names on the 2025 table (Sage, for one); five to seven letters, 37 (Samuel, for one); eight or more, 7 (Sebastian, for one). The longest spellings on the 2025 list, at 9 letters, are Sebastian and Salvatore; the shortest is Sam at 3.

By popularity tier, the list holds 0 top-10 names, 4 more inside the top 100, 21 in the 101–500 band, and 22 in the 501–1,000 band; 3 sit past #1,000, outside the top-1,000 list the generator's 2025 era draws from.

Both sexes' 2025 S lists carry 8 of the same spellings, ranked once per sex: Sawyer (#122 for boys, #291 for girls), Shiloh (#278 for boys, #281 for girls), Sutton (#332 for boys, #181 for girls), Sage (#456 for boys, #160 for girls), Salem (#679 for boys, #436 for girls), Sevyn (#697 for boys, #575 for girls), Skyler (#783 for boys, #671 for girls), and Scottie (#909 for boys, #126 for girls). 15 of the 50 spellings on the 2025 list open Sa-, the letter's most common second letter, ahead of Sh- (8), and 11 different second letters appear across the list.

S boy names: questions answered from the data

Other letters

Girl names for this letter: girl names starting with S.

Source: every name, rank, and count on this page comes from the U.S. Social Security Administration's national baby-names dataset (2025 data, from Social Security card applications). It is public-domain U.S. government data; names given fewer than 5 times in a year are excluded by the SSA, spelling variants are counted separately, and the data covers U.S. births only. Full caveats on the methodology page.