Blaine
- Pronunciation
- [Blaine]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Slender
- Origin
- Celtic
About the Name Blaine
Blaine is a Scottish and Irish surname transferred to given-name use, derived from the Gaelic bláán, meaning "slender" or "lean," and related to a Celtic root describing a narrow or slight figure. The name is also associated with Saint Blaan of Bute, a sixth-century Celtic Christian monk who evangelized in Scotland, giving Blaine a quiet but genuine connection to early Insular Christianity. As a given name in the English-speaking world it took hold most strongly in North America, where its clean one-syllable sound and clearly masculine feel made it attractive to parents seeking something familiar enough to pronounce easily but distinctive enough to stand out from the most saturated lists.
Blaine entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000, with its peak arriving the following year, 2001, at rank #405. It maintained a place in the top-1000 through 2021, a run of more than two decades, before stepping just outside the chart. In its last charted year it ranked #984 with 224 boys. More than 8,900 boys were named Blaine within the SSA top-1000 era. Recent figures show a gradual softening from the mid-2000s highs, though the name retains a loyal following among parents drawn to its crisp Celtic heritage and no-nonsense American sound. Variants include Blane and Blayne for those who prefer alternative spellings with the same strong phonetic core.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Blaine
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Blaine by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2001 with 617 boys named Blaine (boy rank #405 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #992 for boys (230 US births). That's 587 places below its 2001 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 Blaine 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 Blaine the strongest states are West Virginia, Idaho, Arkansas.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | #953 | 55 |
| 2 | Texas | #881 | 159 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #864 | 50 |
| 4 | Illinois | #841 | 61 |
| 5 | Washington | #820 | 40 |
| 6 | Georgia | #807 | 41 |
| 7 | Virginia | #787 | 48 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #748 | 83 |
| 9 | Colorado | #707 | 25 |
| 10 | Ohio | #694 | 117 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Blaine in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Blaine?
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 Blaine to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Blaine 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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