Quinn
- Pronunciation
- [Quinn]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Wise
- Origin
- Gaelic
About the Name Quinn
Quinn descends from the Old Irish surname Ó Cuinn, the patronymic surname meaning "descendant of Conn" — Conn being the Old Irish personal name from cond meaning "chief" or "intelligent." The name has been used continuously in Irish naming traditions for over a millennium, originally as a clan name and later transitioning to first-name usage.
Notable bearers include American historian Quinn Hillyer; the fictional Quinn Fabray of Fox's Glee (2009–2015, played by Dianna Agron); the contemporary American basketball player Quinn Cook; and the iconic American actress Aidan Quinn (using Quinn as a surname).
The name's transition from surname to American first name has been one of the most-iconic late-20th and early-21st-century gender-neutral name events. Quinn is also popular for girls (used at roughly equal rates to boys in the 2010s and 2020s). Quinn climbed from outside the US top 500 in 1980 to the US top 200 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Irish-Gaelic noble pedigree, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive Q-N consonant rhythm. The name reads as both classical-Irish and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Q (the single-letter shortening) and Quinny each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Quinn, Quinne, and Quynn have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Old Irish Ó Cuinn and the broader Conn/Quinn family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Quinn
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Quinn by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2016 with 3,648 girls named Quinn (girl rank #79 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #97 for girls (2,634 US births). That's 18 places below its 2016 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 Quinn Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Quinn the strongest states are South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Dakota | #25 | 209 |
| 2 | North Dakota | #25 | 218 |
| 3 | Minnesota | #31 | 987 |
| 4 | Montana | #38 | 159 |
| 5 | Maine | #40 | 197 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | #41 | 834 |
| 7 | Iowa | #43 | 507 |
| 8 | Vermont | #44 | 88 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #44 | 1,636 |
| 10 | Ohio | #46 | 1,597 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #447 | 106 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #406 | 57 |
| 3 | Georgia | #227 | 442 |
| 4 | Arkansas | #212 | 140 |
| 5 | Tennessee | #205 | 329 |
| 6 | South Carolina | #203 | 220 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #194 | 236 |
| 8 | Kentucky | #182 | 242 |
| 9 | Texas | #174 | 1,637 |
| 10 | New Mexico | #172 | 84 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Quinn in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Quinn?
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 Quinn to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Quinn against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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