Meaning not yet researched.
Reef: US boys given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 54 in 2025. Its best rank was #1,898 in 2021.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #1,898 in 2021; #2,509 in 2025. About 89% of babies named Reef in 2025 were boys.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#2,509 for US boys in 2025. Its best year was 2021, at #1,898.
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.
Reef: US boys and girls given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 54 boys in 2025. Peak: #1,898 in 2021 · most boys in one year: 81 (2021).
In 2025, 54 US boys were named Reef, making it the 2,509th most common boys’ name of the year, up 39 places from #2,548 in 2024. That is 1 more than the 53 boys named Reef in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #1,898, reached in 2021. That year also had the most boys given the name: 81. For comparison, it was #2,477 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
In 2025, 7 US girls were named Reef, making it the 12,896th most common girls’ name of the year, down 2,793 places from #10,103 in 2024. That is 3 fewer than the 10 girls named Reef in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #10,103, reached in 2024. That year also had the most girls given the name: 10. For comparison, it was unranked (under five girls) in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Reef in 30 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1996 with 6 babies. In all, 1,353 US babies have been given the name, 4.7% of them girls and 95% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2010s, with 598 babies named Reef.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 608 US boys were named Reef; the busiest of those years was 2021, with 81. In 2025 that was about 1 in 31,631 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Reef ranked highest in Hawaii in 2025, at #145 for boys there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Rarer spellings such as Reif and Riff 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.
No related spellings pass our data threshold.
Rare spellings summarised here: Reif (29), Riff (5).
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 Reef 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | 8 | #145 | #228 |
| Florida | 20 | #773 | #1,359 |
| California | 11 | #1,561 | #1,731 |
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 7 | #12,896 | 54 | #2,509 |
| 2024 | 10 | #10,103 | 53 | #2,548 |
| 2023 | 6 | #14,804 | 68 | #2,144 |
| 2022 | 7 | #13,290 | 62 | #2,314 |
| 2021 | 8 | #11,966 | 81 | #1,898 |
| 2020 | — | — | 58 | #2,343 |
| 2019 | 5 | #17,450 | 71 | #2,060 |
| 2018 | 8 | #12,259 | 53 | #2,465 |
| 2017 | — | — | 51 | #2,524 |
| 2016 | — | — | 57 | #2,329 |
| 2015 | — | — | 51 | #2,477 |
| 2014 | — | — | 54 | #2,397 |
| 2013 | 5 | #18,704 | 49 | #2,515 |
| 2012 | 7 | #14,661 | 51 | #2,476 |
| 2011 | — | — | 72 | #1,942 |
| 2010 | — | — | 64 | #2,113 |
| 2009 | — | — | 51 | #2,512 |
| 2008 | — | — | 51 | #2,498 |
| 2007 | — | — | 39 | #3,012 |
| 2006 | — | — | 47 | #2,566 |
| 2005 | — | — | 32 | #3,222 |
| 2004 | — | — | 27 | #3,521 |
| 2003 | — | — | 16 | #4,988 |
| 2002 | — | — | 24 | #3,644 |
| 2001 | — | — | 14 | #5,343 |
| 2000 | — | — | 10 | #6,717 |
| 1999 | — | — | 9 | #6,970 |
| 1998 | — | — | 9 | #6,721 |
| 1997 | — | — | 6 | #9,015 |
| 1996 | — | — | 6 | #8,774 |
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).