Colin
- Pronunciation
- [Co-lin]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Virile
- Origin
- Gaelic
About the Name Colin
Colin descends from the medieval English Col — a short form of Nicholas (see separate entry on Nicholas for the underlying Greek Nikolaos etymology meaning "victory of the people") — plus the medieval English diminutive ending -in. The name has been used continuously in English and Scottish-Gaelic naming traditions since the medieval period.
Notable bearers include American statesman Colin Powell (1937–2021, the African-American general who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War, then as Secretary of State under George W. Bush — making him the first African-American in those roles); British actor Colin Firth (Oscar winner for The King's Speech, 2011); American novelist Colin Whitehead (Pulitzer Prize for The Underground Railroad); and American actor Colin Farrell.
Colin held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1991 through 2010 — over two decades of steady American popularity. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use. The name's appeal is its compact medieval-English elegance combined with two short syllables — the in-built Saint Nicholas/Christmas register from the underlying Nicholas root, the gentle masculine sound, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. The name reads as both classical and contemporary, slightly Celtic-influenced without being heavily Irish. Common nicknames Col, Colley, and the rare Lin each occasionally appear; the alternate spelling Collin (with double L) has its own SSA tracking and is a related but distinct American spelling. International forms include the original Nicholas family across European languages — Nicolás (Spanish), Niccolò (Italian), Nikolai (Russian) — rather than direct Colin variants.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Colin
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Colin by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2004 with 5,122 boys named Colin (boy rank #85 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #343 for boys (950 US births). That's 258 places below its 2004 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 Colin 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 Colin the strongest states are Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #92 | 732 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | #127 | 108 |
| 3 | Connecticut | #130 | 263 |
| 4 | Rhode Island | #135 | 52 |
| 5 | New Jersey | #143 | 623 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | #146 | 878 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | #152 | 68 |
| 8 | Delaware | #168 | 34 |
| 9 | Maine | #188 | 58 |
| 10 | New York | #190 | 1,007 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Colin in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole | From The Dark Town: Abbreviation Of Nicholas People's Victory. | Male | English |
Famous People Named Colin
3 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Colin.
- Colin Farrell — Movie Actor (1976)
- Colin Firth — Movie Actor (1960)
- Colin Powell — Politician (1937)
Looking for names like Colin?
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 Colin to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Colin 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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