Case
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Of Casey Alert: Vigorous.
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Case
Case is a modern American spelling variant of Casey (see separate entry on Casey for the Old Irish surname etymology — meaning "alert, vigilant," from the Old Irish cathasach). The simpler Case spelling is essentially a 21st-century American invention, distinguishing the spelling from the historical Casey.
The two spellings (Case and Casey) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Irish surname. The Case spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form. Notable bearers include American basketball player Case Walker; the contemporary fictional Case of various contemporary novels; and various contemporary American social media influencers.
Case's American climb is very recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2015 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been used predominantly for boys in modern American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Casey-Irish-Gaelic alert-vigilant pedigree, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive C-S consonant rhythm. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Casey (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name on its own) and Cason each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Case, Casey (the more popular American spelling), and Kase have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Old Irish cathasach.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Case
US Popularity History (2006–2025)
Annual US births named Case by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2014 with 623 boys named Case (boy rank #468 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #733 for boys (359 US births). That's 265 places below its 2014 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 Case 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 Case the strongest states are South Dakota, Arkansas, Oklahoma.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Dakota | #195 | 20 |
| 2 | Arkansas | #243 | 144 |
| 3 | Oklahoma | #305 | 148 |
| 4 | West Virginia | #308 | 31 |
| 5 | Kentucky | #310 | 149 |
| 6 | Nebraska | #351 | 21 |
| 7 | Alabama | #386 | 120 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #389 | 180 |
| 9 | Iowa | #401 | 85 |
| 10 | Texas | #402 | 791 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Virginia | #840 | 52 |
| 2 | Illinois | #813 | 88 |
| 3 | Arizona | #770 | 48 |
| 4 | Florida | #754 | 148 |
| 5 | Maryland | #739 | 17 |
| 6 | Washington | #715 | 42 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #676 | 93 |
| 8 | Colorado | #660 | 51 |
| 9 | Michigan | #634 | 111 |
| 10 | North Carolina | #631 | 130 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Case in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Case?
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 Case to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Case 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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