Boy Names Ending in N Peaked in 2011. What Came Next

In 2011, 36.4% of baby boys born in the US were given a name ending in the letter N. Mason, Jayden, Ethan and Aiden were all in the top 10, and more than one boy in three had a name like theirs.

That was the high point. The share has fallen every year since, to 28% in 2025, and not one boys' name in the 2025 top 10 ends in N. We went through the SSA's national baby name data to see which N names faded, which ones gained ground, and which ending is picking up the slack.

How the N Wave Rose and Fell

Here is the share of US boys given a name ending in N, from 1960 to 2025.

Year	Boys with a name ending in N
1960	15.3%
1970	19.5%
1980	24.4%
1990	25.4%
2000	31.3%
2011	36.4%
2015	34.6%
2020	31.5%
2025	28%

For the first six decades of the 1900s, the share of boys with an N ending barely changed. Then it took off. Between 1960 and 2011 the share more than doubled, and the climb only flattened out at the very top: 36.1% in 2008, 36.2% in 2010, 36.4% in 2011.

The way down has been steady. The share has dropped in every year since 2011, and the last five years look like this: 31.5% in 2020, then 30.6%, 29.7%, 29.2%, 28.4% and 28% in 2025. That puts 2025 back about where the trend stood in the mid-1990s: 28.5% in 1995.

The Top 10, Then and Now

The clearest way to see the change is to set two top-10 lists side by side.

In 2011 the top 10 boys' names in the US were Jacob, Mason, William, Jayden, Noah, Michael, Ethan, Alexander, Aiden and Daniel. Four of them end in N.

In 2025 the top 10 were Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, Henry, James, Elijah, Mateo, William and Lucas. None of them do.

The Names That Fell Furthest

The decline is concentrated in a handful of names that were enormous in 2011. Here are the biggest ones, with their rank and number of baby boys in each year.

Name	2011 rank	2011 births	2025 rank	2025 births
Mason	#2	19,530	#39	6,291
Jayden	#4	17,019	#70	4,653
Ethan	#7	16,702	#24	7,852
Aiden	#9	15,520	#62	5,046
Logan	#21	12,999	#53	5,576
Jackson	#23	12,408	#36	6,582
Landon	#34	9,761	#127	2,840
Brayden	#36	9,025	#229	1,545
Gavin	#37	9,016	#303	1,125

This is a 2011-versus-2025 comparison, not a steady slide for every name. Logan and Jackson both climbed for several years after 2011: Logan peaked at #5 in 2017 and Jackson at #14 in 2021, and both have fallen since.

Mason's best year was #2 in 2011, the same year the N ending peaked. Jayden and Aiden reached their highest ranks a year earlier: Jayden at #4 in 2010 and Aiden at #9 in 2010.

None of the four former top-10 names has become rare. Ethan was still #24 in 2025, and Mason still went to thousands of boys. But each is now shared with far fewer classmates than it was for a boy born in 2011.

Not All N Endings Are Equal

"Ends in N" covers very different sounds, and they haven't moved together. Here is the share of boys whose names end in each pair or trio of letters.

Ending	Examples	2011	2025
-an	Ethan, Logan	12%	9.8%
-on	Mason, Landon	10.7%	9.2%
-en	Jayden, Brayden	7.6%	4.9%
-in	Gavin, Benjamin	4.3%	2.5%
-den	Aiden, Hayden	5%	2.2%
-son	Jackson, Hudson	4.2%	4.1%

The rhyming names ending in -den, the Aiden, Jayden, Brayden and Hayden family, lost more than half their share. That one group accounts for a sizable part of the overall fall. (For more on that wave, see Baby Names by Decade.)

Names ending in -son barely moved at all. Jackson slipped, but other surname-style names took its place.

The N Names That Gained Ground

While the overall share shrank, a group of N names ranked higher in 2025 than they did in 2011.

Name	2011 rank	2025 rank	2025 births
Sebastian	#68	#16	8,605
Hudson	#112	#17	8,583
Roman	#157	#42	6,162
Grayson	#98	#51	5,805
Nolan	#92	#65	4,846
Lincoln	#179	#69	4,703

Only two of them are still rising. Hudson reached its highest rank ever in 2025, at #17, and Roman did the same, at #42 in 2025. The others climbed after 2011, peaked, and have eased back since: Sebastian peaked at #13 in 2022, Grayson at #32 in 2018, Lincoln at #40 in 2020 and Nolan at #57 in 2023. Even so, every name in the table ranked higher in 2025 than in 2011. So an N ending isn't a mark of a dated name on its own. None of them belongs to the Aiden rhyming family that dominated 2011.

Which Ending Is Growing

N is still, by a wide margin, the most common final letter for US boys. But the gap has narrowed. Here are the six most common final letters of boys' names in each year.

Rank	2011	2025
1	N, 36.4%	N, 28%
2	R, 8.8%	R, 9.5%
3	L, 7%	S, 8.5%
4	E, 6.8%	O, 7.7%
5	S, 6.4%	E, 6.9%
6	Y, 5.8%	L, 6.7%

The biggest change after N is O. In 2011, 4.2% of boys had a name ending in O. By 2025 it was 7.7%. In 2011, the only boys' name ending in O in the top 100 was Diego, at #99. Here is where the leading O names stood in 2025.

Name	2011 rank	2025 rank	2025 births
Mateo	#171	#8	11,045
Leo	#167	#19	8,173
Santiago	#131	#26	7,554
Thiago	Outside the top 1,000	#50	5,835
Enzo	#403	#72	4,556
Theo	#863	#82	3,945
Milo	#358	#119	2,974
Arlo	#915	#148	2,443

Thiago went to just 188 baby boys in 2011, which left it outside the top 1,000. Theo went to 245 babies that year. Both are now in the top 100. They also come from many languages: Mateo and Santiago are Spanish, Thiago is Portuguese, Enzo is Italian, Leo is Latin, Theo is Greek and Arlo is English.

Names ending in S also gained ground, from 6.4% of boys in 2011 to 8.5% in 2025. Y kept fading: 5.8% in 2011 and 4.7% in 2025.

What This Means If You Love an N Name

If your favorite is Mason or Aiden, the numbers are on your side: your son will meet far fewer namesakes than a boy born in 2011 did. The names are familiar, but they are no longer everywhere.

If you want something that sounds current, the 2025 data points to two places. One is the N names that never joined the rhyming wave, like Hudson and Roman. The other is the vowel endings, especially O.

And if a name's sound matters more to you than its trend line, the ending is only one clue. A name's rank in its year tells you how many classmates might share it, and that is easy to check on any name page. For more on how spread out names have become, see Are Baby Names Getting More Unique?

If you'd like help building a shortlist that fits your surname and your style, you can start a free name consultation.

How We Got These Numbers

All figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name data, which lists every name given to at least five babies of one sex in a year in the US. The shares are each ending's percentage of all boys born in that year, rounded to one decimal place, and count every name in the data, not only the top 1,000. Ranks are within boys' names for that year, and tied names share a rank, so a rank can differ by a place from the SSA's own list. A name with no rank was outside the top 1,000 that year. Names are counted by exact spelling, so Jayden and Jaden are separate names.

FAQ

Q: What share of US baby boys have a name ending in N? In 2025, 28% of baby boys born in the US got a name ending in N, down from a peak of 36.4% in 2011.

Q: Which boy names ending in N fell the most? Mason, Jayden, Ethan and Aiden were all in the 2011 top 10. By 2025, Mason was #39, Jayden #70, Ethan #24 and Aiden #62.

Q: Are any boy names ending in N still rising? Yes. Hudson rose from #112 in 2011 to #17 in 2025, and Roman from #157 in 2011 to #42 in 2025. Both reached their highest rank ever in 2025.

Q: What ending is replacing N for boys? The fastest-growing ending is O, which went from 4.2% of boys in 2011 to 7.7% in 2025, led by Mateo at #8 in 2025.