Rhys
- Pronunciation
- [Rhys]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fiery.
- Origin
- Welsh
About the Name Rhys
Rhys descends from the Welsh rhys meaning "ardor" or "passion" — anchored by multiple medieval Welsh kings and princes named Rhys, including Rhys ap Tewdwr (c. 1040–1093), the last sovereign king of Deheubarth in southwest Wales, and Rhys ap Gruffydd ("The Lord Rhys," 1132–1197), the prominent medieval Welsh prince who maintained Welsh independence against Anglo-Norman encroachment.
Notable modern bearers include British actress Rhys Ifans (using Ifans as a surname; born 1967, the Welsh actor of Notting Hill 1999); American actress Rhys Wakefield (born 1988, the Australian actor); and the contemporary Welsh playwright Rhys ap Cynan.
Rhys's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Welsh-American naming and the broader American taste for distinctive Celtic boys' names. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Welsh-medieval-royal pedigree, the in-built distinctive ardor/passion etymology, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive Rh-Y-S consonant rhythm. The name reads as both classical-Welsh and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Reece (alternate Welsh spelling) and Rhysie each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Rhys (Welsh original), Reece, and Rees have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Rhys (Welsh original) and the broader related Welsh family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Rhys
US Popularity History (2004–2025)
Annual US births named Rhys by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2024 with 946 boys named Rhys (boy rank #354 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #412 for boys (778 US births). That's 58 places below its 2024 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 Rhys 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 Rhys the strongest states are Delaware, New Hampshire, Maine.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Delaware | #194 | 37 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | #209 | 27 |
| 3 | Maine | #228 | 18 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | #240 | 521 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #295 | 181 |
| 6 | Virginia | #320 | 264 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #335 | 233 |
| 8 | Maryland | #348 | 154 |
| 9 | Colorado | #356 | 164 |
| 10 | Oregon | #362 | 110 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Rhys in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Rhys?
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 Rhys to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Rhys 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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