Hector
- Pronunciation
- [Hec-tor]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Steadfast
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Hector
Hector descends from the Greek Héktōr (Ἕκτωρ), possibly from the Greek ekhein meaning "to hold," yielding the meaning "steadfast" or "holding fast." The name's overwhelming classical anchor is Hector, the eldest son of King Priam of Troy and the foremost Trojan warrior in Homer's Iliad — killed by Achilles in revenge for the death of Patroclus, with the dragging of Hector's body around the walls of Troy being one of the most-iconic scenes of Western classical literature.
Notable bearers include French composer Hector Berlioz (1803–1869, the iconic French Romantic composer of the Symphonie fantastique); American novelist Hector Hugh Munro (Saki, 1870–1916); and American film director Hector Elizondo.
Hector has been continuously used in Spanish-speaking American communities for over a century. The name held a US top-300 boys' rank from 1976 through 2010, driven primarily by Spanish-language naming influence. The name's appeal is its layered Greek-classical-Trojan-heroic pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built warrior-hero literary register, the strong classical-historical anchor, and tonal versatility from casual to formal registers. The name reads as both classical-Greek and contemporary in Spanish-American naming. Common nicknames Hec (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Hecky, and the rare Tor each carry distinct registers; international forms include Héctor (Spanish original, with accent), Ettore (Italian), Hektor (German/Polish), and the original Greek Héktōr.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Hector
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Hector by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2005 with 2,458 boys named Hector (boy rank #167 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #409 for boys (779 US births). That's 242 places below its 2005 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 Hector 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 Hector the strongest states are Texas, Arizona, California.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #170 | 2,182 |
| 2 | Arizona | #198 | 405 |
| 3 | California | #203 | 1,968 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #235 | 92 |
| 5 | Nevada | #334 | 92 |
| 6 | Florida | #359 | 473 |
| 7 | Idaho | #369 | 25 |
| 8 | Illinois | #377 | 285 |
| 9 | Colorado | #381 | 153 |
| 10 | Oregon | #399 | 82 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Hector in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ector | Father Of Arthur (Fifteenth Century) | Male | Arthurian |
Looking for names like Hector?
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 Hector to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Hector 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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