Riggs
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Son Of Rigg
- Origin
- English
About the Name Riggs
Riggs is an English surname-turned-given-name, traditionally understood as "son of Rigg" — itself from an Old Norse and northern English word for a ridge or raised strip of land. That rugged, landscape-rooted origin gives Riggs a strong, masculine punch, and its single bold syllable fits squarely within the modern fashion for surname-style boy names with a tough, frontier edge — names that sound sturdy, confident, and distinctly all-American.
That trend has driven a swift recent rise. Riggs first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2020 and climbed steadily to its peak in 2024 at #668 — its highest rank to date and a clear sign of a name still gaining momentum rather than fading, having moved from #704 in 2022 to #733 in 2023 before reaching that new high. Few names in this batch are rising as decisively.
With its crisp, no-nonsense sound, Riggs reads as confident and contemporary, pairing the appeal of an established-sounding surname with a fresh, energetic feel. It sits comfortably alongside Briggs, Boggs, and Wells for parents drawn to short, sturdy last-name-first choices with an outdoorsy, rugged spirit. Punchy, modern, and memorable, Riggs offers a strong single-syllable identity that needs no nickname of its own — though the affectionate short form Rig comes easily if one is ever wanted.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Riggs
US Popularity History (2020–2025)
Annual US births named Riggs by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2024 with 410 boys named Riggs (boy rank #668 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #776 for boys (329 US births). That's 108 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 Riggs 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 Riggs the strongest states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #195 | 36 |
| 2 | South Dakota | #235 | 31 |
| 3 | Idaho | #333 | 45 |
| 4 | Utah | #352 | 132 |
| 5 | Nebraska | #369 | 45 |
| 6 | Arkansas | #425 | 42 |
| 7 | Kansas | #434 | 47 |
| 8 | Iowa | #452 | 65 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | #497 | 57 |
| 10 | South Carolina | #521 | 40 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Riggs in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Riggs?
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 Riggs to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Riggs against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).