Vance
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Grain Fans
- Origin
- English
About the Name Vance
Vance is an English surname-turned-given-name with a down-to-earth meaning connected to "grain fans" — the winnowing tools once used to separate grain from chaff — marking an ancestor by the agricultural work he did. Like many occupational surnames, it carries a sturdy, working-the-land quality, evoking fields and harvests, and as a first name it reads as crisp, strong, and refreshingly compact. There is something honest and unadorned about its origins.
The name's single firm syllable gives it a clean, masculine punch, fitting comfortably within the modern fashion for sleek, surname-style names that feel both classic and current. Vance reads as vintage and contemporary at once, a no-nonsense choice with a quiet confidence to it and not a wasted sound. It pairs especially well with longer surnames and middle names, providing a short, solid anchor that lands with assurance every time it is spoken.
As a boys' name, Vance first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2001 and reached its peak in 2007 at #723. It has shown long-running staying power, remaining in the rankings as recently as 2024, when it sat at #996, and over its tracked span it accounted for 6,088 births among the top-1000 — a steady presence sustained across more than two decades. Its strength lies in that brisk, one-syllable solidity that never feels dated.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Vance
US Popularity History (2001–2024)
Annual US births named Vance by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 318 boys named Vance (boy rank #723 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2024, ranked #996 for boys (226 US births). That's 273 places below its 2007 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 Vance 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 Vance the strongest states are Kansas, Massachusetts, Utah.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kansas | #563 | 19 |
| 2 | Massachusetts | #664 | 20 |
| 3 | Utah | #688 | 55 |
| 4 | Missouri | #690 | 49 |
| 5 | Minnesota | #715 | 51 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | #743 | 38 |
| 7 | Ohio | #745 | 89 |
| 8 | North Carolina | #745 | 107 |
| 9 | Arizona | #747 | 48 |
| 10 | Indiana | #751 | 61 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #1,063 | 87 |
| 2 | California | #971 | 119 |
| 3 | Michigan | #904 | 56 |
| 4 | Maryland | #852 | 17 |
| 5 | Washington | #852 | 43 |
| 6 | Illinois | #794 | 72 |
| 7 | Colorado | #776 | 45 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #775 | 91 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #758 | 52 |
| 10 | Indiana | #751 | 61 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Vance in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Vance?
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 Vance to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Vance 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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