Ander
- Pronunciation
- [An-der]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Basque Form Of Andrew (Manly)
- Origin
- Basque
About the Name Ander
Ander is the Basque form of Andrew, which descends ultimately from the Greek andreios, meaning "manly" or "brave." In the Basque Country, Ander is the everyday equivalent of a name that has been carried across Europe for many centuries, which gives it deep historical roots while retaining a fresh, streamlined feel for English speakers encountering it for the first time. That combination of antiquity and simplicity is much of its appeal.
Its two clean syllables, An-der, make it crisp and effortless to say, sharing a sound with familiar names like Anderson while standing confidently on its own. The name reads as modern and international, a compact and contemporary alternative to longer forms of Andrew that moves smoothly between Spanish, Basque, and English-speaking settings. It feels at once strong and approachable, with none of the heaviness some traditional names carry.
Ander first entered the US Social Security top-1000 quite recently, in 2020, and reached its peak in 2023 at rank #564, sitting at #585 in 2024. It has accounted for 2,375 top-1000 births so far, a modest total befitting its newness. That brief but rising track record marks Ander as one of the newer Basque names finding a foothold on American charts, part of a growing interest in short, globally portable boys' names.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Ander
US Popularity History (2020–2025)
Annual US births named Ander by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2023 with 516 boys named Ander (boy rank #564 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #728 for boys (365 US births). That's 164 places below its 2023 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Ander Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Ander the strongest states are New Mexico, Florida, Arizona.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | #367 | 15 |
| 2 | Florida | #441 | 202 |
| 3 | Arizona | #456 | 100 |
| 4 | Texas | #490 | 582 |
| 5 | Oregon | #500 | 20 |
| 6 | California | #536 | 379 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | #539 | 22 |
| 8 | Utah | #550 | 43 |
| 9 | Maryland | #561 | 36 |
| 10 | Colorado | #595 | 43 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pennsylvania | #964 | 22 |
| 2 | Washington | #806 | 46 |
| 3 | Tennessee | #785 | 40 |
| 4 | New Jersey | #784 | 67 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #770 | 67 |
| 6 | New York | #769 | 99 |
| 7 | Georgia | #752 | 78 |
| 8 | Wisconsin | #752 | 21 |
| 9 | Virginia | #664 | 30 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #661 | 28 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Ander in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Ander?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Ander to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Ander against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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