Sullivan
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Dark Eyes. Surname.
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Sullivan
Sullivan descends from the Old Irish surname Ó Súileabháin, the patronymic surname meaning "descendant of Súileabhán" — Súileabhán being the Old Irish personal name composed of súil (eye) and dubh (dark, black) plus a diminutive — yielding "dark-eyed" or "one-eyed." The Sullivan family was one of the major medieval Irish noble families of County Cork in southwestern Ireland.
Notable bearers include American author Anne Sullivan (using Sullivan as a surname, 1866–1936, the iconic Irish-American teacher of Helen Keller); American Olympic gymnast Sullivan Sweeney; American astronaut Kathryn Sullivan (using Sullivan as a surname, born 1951, the American astronaut who became the first American woman to walk in space in 1984); and the iconic American TV variety-show host Ed Sullivan (using Sullivan as a surname, 1901–1974, the host of CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show 1948–1971).
The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 2000s, riding the broader American taste for Irish-derived surnames as boys' first names alongside Connor, Donovan, and Brennan. Sullivan's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 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 popular three-syllable -an ending family. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Irish and contemporary American. Common nicknames Sully (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Sul, Van (back-end shortening), and the rare Sun each carry distinct registers; international forms include the original Old Irish Ó Súileabháin.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Sullivan
US Popularity History (2002–2025)
Annual US births named Sullivan by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 1,083 boys named Sullivan (boy rank #314 that year).
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 Sullivan 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 Sullivan the strongest states are Vermont, Minnesota, South Carolina.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #92 | 30 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #131 | 486 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #144 | 358 |
| 4 | Maine | #156 | 88 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #175 | 346 |
| 6 | Montana | #198 | 28 |
| 7 | South Dakota | #201 | 60 |
| 8 | Iowa | #203 | 192 |
| 9 | North Dakota | #222 | 40 |
| 10 | Ohio | #250 | 469 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #757 | 320 |
| 2 | Texas | #738 | 298 |
| 3 | Arizona | #680 | 72 |
| 4 | Florida | #669 | 209 |
| 5 | New Jersey | #630 | 91 |
| 6 | Alabama | #595 | 64 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #567 | 88 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #511 | 66 |
| 9 | Georgia | #497 | 194 |
| 10 | Utah | #476 | 74 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Sullivan in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sully | From The South Meadow | Male | English |
Looking for names like Sullivan?
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 Sullivan to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Sullivan 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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