Meaning not yet researched.
Hero: US boys given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 65 in 2025. Its best rank was #2,085 in 2021.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #2,085 in 2021; #2,195 in 2025. About 93% of babies named Hero in 2025 were boys.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#2,195 for US boys in 2025. Its best year was 2021, at #2,085.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Hero: US boys and girls given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 65 boys in 2025. Peak: #2,085 in 2021 · most boys in one year: 70 (2021).
In 2025, 65 US boys were named Hero, making it the 2,195th most common boys’ name of the year, up 100 places from #2,295 in 2024. That is 3 more than the 62 boys named Hero in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #2,085, reached in 2021. That year also had the most boys given the name: 70. For comparison, it was #2,285 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
In 2025, 5 US girls were named Hero, making it the 15,768th most common girls’ name of the year, up 423 places from #16,191 in 2024. That is 0 more than the 5 girls named Hero in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #5,865, reached in 2016. That year also had the most girls given the name: 22. For comparison, it was #9,161 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Hero in 26 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 2000 with 8 babies. In all, 1,025 US babies have been given the name, 21% of them girls and 79% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2010s, with 463 babies named Hero.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 592 US boys were named Hero; the busiest of those years was 2021, with 70. In 2025 that was about 1 in 26,278 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Hero ranked highest in Georgia in 2025, at #1,273 for boys there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Related spellings in the SSA files include Hiro (917 babies since 1880). Rarer spellings such as Heru and Hiero are summarised on this page.
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Rare spellings summarised here: Heru (257), Hiero (10).
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Hero in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
US boys. Rank within each state. SSA leaves out states where fewer than five boys got the name, so 48 are not listed.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank 2025 | Rank 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 6 | #1,273 | — |
| Texas | 6 | #2,384 | #1,989 |
| California | 5 | #2,598 | #1,484 |
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 5 | #15,768 | 65 | #2,195 |
| 2024 | 5 | #16,191 | 62 | #2,295 |
| 2023 | 5 | #16,078 | 67 | #2,158 |
| 2022 | 13 | #8,228 | 69 | #2,142 |
| 2021 | 8 | #11,499 | 70 | #2,085 |
| 2020 | 11 | #9,169 | 58 | #2,330 |
| 2019 | 6 | #14,455 | 49 | #2,637 |
| 2018 | 11 | #9,407 | 48 | #2,622 |
| 2017 | 6 | #14,793 | 53 | #2,431 |
| 2016 | 22 | #5,865 | 51 | #2,489 |
| 2015 | 12 | #9,161 | 58 | #2,285 |
| 2014 | 20 | #6,289 | 16 | #5,566 |
| 2013 | 8 | #12,420 | 21 | #4,524 |
| 2012 | 8 | #12,646 | 19 | #4,923 |
| 2011 | 12 | #9,369 | 15 | #5,778 |
| 2010 | 6 | #15,676 | 22 | #4,415 |
| 2009 | — | — | 14 | #6,222 |
| 2008 | 10 | #11,092 | 7 | #10,275 |
| 2007 | 5 | #18,655 | 20 | #4,700 |
| 2006 | 5 | #18,175 | 7 | #9,951 |
| 2005 | 9 | #11,236 | 10 | #7,320 |
| 2004 | 7 | #13,254 | 5 | #12,011 |
| 2003 | 5 | #16,683 | — | — |
| 2002 | 7 | #12,698 | — | — |
| 2001 | 5 | #16,259 | — | — |
| 2000 | 8 | #11,108 | — | — |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).