Felix
- Pronunciation
- [Fe-lix]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Name Of A Saint
- Origin
- Anglo
About the Name Felix
Felix descends from the Latin felix meaning "happy," "fortunate," or "successful." The name was used as a Roman cognomen and later as a Christian name across European Christian-influenced naming traditions. The name's Christian uptake is anchored by multiple saints — at least 67 different Saint Felixes are recognized in Roman Catholic tradition, making it one of the most-recurring saint-names in Christian history.
Notable bearers include German-Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847, the foundational German Romantic composer who composed the famous "Wedding March" from A Midsummer Night's Dream); Brazilian footballer Felix Mwambano; and the fictional Felix the Cat (the iconic American animated feline introduced 1919, one of the first major animation characters of the silent film era). The Aaron Copland-Walter Trier 1908 illustrated children's character Felix Salten became another anchor.
The contemporary American Felix surge is part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Theodore and Henry. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 200 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. The name's appeal is its layered Latin-classical register combined with two short syllables — the in-built "happy/fortunate" meaning gives the name an inherent positive register, and the multiple-saint Christian pedigree gives it dignified depth. The name reads as both classical-formal and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Lix, the rare Phil (back-end shortening), and Felicity (the related feminine form, see separate consideration) each carry distinct registers. International forms include Felix (French/German/Italian, identical), Felipe (Spanish, related but distinct), Felicio (Portuguese), and the original Latin felix.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Felix
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Felix by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2024 with 2,081 boys named Felix (boy rank #177 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #175 for boys (2,064 US births). That's 2 places above its earlier 2024 peak — the name is more popular now than it has ever been.
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 Felix 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 Felix the strongest states are District of Columbia, Wyoming, Vermont.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #72 | 142 |
| 2 | Wyoming | #87 | 25 |
| 3 | Vermont | #97 | 45 |
| 4 | Oregon | #120 | 332 |
| 5 | Washington | #121 | 648 |
| 6 | Minnesota | #135 | 464 |
| 7 | Maine | #136 | 95 |
| 8 | California | #143 | 2,812 |
| 9 | Colorado | #147 | 438 |
| 10 | Alaska | #148 | 42 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #562 | 20 |
| 2 | Alabama | #435 | 104 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #408 | 132 |
| 4 | Arkansas | #376 | 89 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #350 | 128 |
| 6 | West Virginia | #330 | 28 |
| 7 | Tennessee | #317 | 239 |
| 8 | Georgia | #314 | 335 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #312 | 255 |
| 10 | Kentucky | #293 | 162 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Felix in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Felice | Happy | Female | English |
Famous People Named Felix
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Felix.
- Felix Christian Klein was a German Mathematician known for his important works in non-Euclidean geometry.
Looking for names like Felix?
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 Felix to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Felix 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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