The baby name August sounds like high summer, but with a grand meaning and history galore, it’s a surprising serious, grounded choice for a son.
Thanks to Arthur for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
LOFTY
It’s the very height of summer, the season of cookouts and barefoot walks on the beach.
But the baby name August traces its roots all the way back to the first emperor of mighty Rome, circa 27 BC.
He answered to Octavian. Born the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, his title wasn’t actually emperor. Instead, the Roman Senate proclaimed him Augustus.
It comes from either the Latin augere – to increase, or possibly augur – to see the future.
The meaning is usually given as venerable or grand.
Millennia later, it still projects nobility.
Accomplishment, too. Augustus would reign for four decades, doubling the size of the empire, both by conquest and alliance. By the end of his life, Rome ruled territory from Britain to India. In history books, we refer to him as Emperor Augustus, implying it served as a first name.
SAINTS and KINGS
Augustus might’ve been the first, but others followed.
The fourth century theologian, Augustine of Hippo, penned Confessions, The City of God, and more works still influential today. He’s not the only saint by the name.
Three kings of Poland make it even more regal. Queen Victoria’s beloved husband was known as Prince Albert, but his birth name was Franz Albert August Karl Emanuel. The baby name August dots many a royal German and Scandinavian family tree.
Speaking of Germany, automobile engineer and entrepreneur August Horch founded Audi in 1910.
Bestselling author Augusten Burroughs, acclaimed playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson make it literary. Prolific Swedish writer August Strindberg lends it an even more creative, world-changing spirit.
France adds two Augustes to the list: sculptor Rodin and painter Renoir.
BY THE NUMBERS
The baby name August has appeared in the US Top 1000 every year from 1880 onward.
During the nineteenth century, it regularly appeared in the Top 100. But it slowly faded, hovering near the very edge of the rankings by the 1970s. As of 1983, it reached an all-time low of #930. That represents 90 births – about a quarter of the number of Augusts born fifty years earlier.
The baby name August remained rare into the 1990s, when a slow and steady recovery began.
STORYBOOK
In small ways, the baby name August began to catch parents’ attention.
August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for The Piano Lesson in 1990. Anthony Hopkins starred in a movie titled August in 1996.
But most of the name’s uses lean younger, even storybook.
Actor August Schellenberg played Jesse’s mentor in 1993 family feel-good hit Free Willy.
In the 2000s we meet:
- A musical genius love-child of a star-crossed couple. The child’s name – and the 2007 movie’s title – is August Rush.
- In 2012, the hero of Wonder, though RJ Palacio’s character usually answers to Auggie.
- Girl Meets World, the next generation sequel to Boy Meets World, featured Cory and Topanga’s kids. Riley was the girl at the center of things, and little brother August, called Auggie.
A long list of celebrities welcomed sons named August during the same era, including Dave Matthews and Mariska Hargitay.
The name inched up the charts, slowly but surely. In 2000, the baby name August stood at #613. By 2010, it reached #427. In 2015, the name reached #195.
TOP 100 RETURN?
As of 2021, the baby name August stood at #121.
It could be headed back to the US Top 100. It’s a summery, seasonal world name, as borrowed from the natural world as River or Kai. But it’s also a name with a long and international history, accomplished and distinguished. Nicknames Auggie and Gus are darling, but in full, August is sophisticated and strong.
A recent boost for the baby name August comes courtesy of the British royal family. Princess Eugenie and husband Jack Brooksbank welcomed son August Philip Hawke in early 2021. All three names were inspired by family members, including August – from Prince Albert’s middle name. (Albert was Queen Victoria’s husband.)
It’s easy to imagine the baby name August continuing to gain in use, a name with history to spare that’s right at home in the twenty-first century.
What do you think of the baby name August?
First published on August 14, 2008, this post was revised substantially and re-published on August 4, 2014, again on July 18, 2019, and most recently on February 24, 2021.
Another, it’s quite true – we know *at least* two boys called Charles, Theodore, Max, Gus and Henry. And James and William! Oh, we know many, many boys called James and William! I don’t know a single Jake, though, so it goes to show that even the most popular names are less common than they once were.
I’m almost finished crunching the Top 1000 boys’ names, but here’s a sneak preview: Ethan drops to #9. He’d have dropped farther, but a handful of Ethens bolstered his ranking. (We know an Ethen. I never dared asked why the alternate spelling.)
What’s interesting about boy names is that crunching the list has been PAINFULLY hard. The rules I used for the girls’ list don’t quite work. Aiden and company are #3, Jayden #4, Caden #16, Brayden #34, Hayden #80. All together, that’s quite the blob. But I think they’re probably too different to count as one name. I counted Isabel and Izabella together without much doubt – but Jack and Jackson? Or Jack, John, Jackson and Jonathan?
My instinct is that there’s a narrower range of sounds used in boys’ names, and so while they appear to be distinct, they sound more similar. Which makes The Classics and the New Classics – James, Christopher, Ethan, George, Zachary, Henry, David – sound a bit more crisp and distinctive, even though they’re not.
I almost fell off my chair when I realized what the #1 name was for boys … add in all the respellings and short forms, and any way you count it, I think it is *probably* Alexander. Hopefully Alexei will not be scarred for life.
Thanks, Verity. That might have been it. I’ll have to find it at WalMart or Amazon. I read the reviews and yeah, Mr. Holland’s Opus is a fave, so maybe this will be too! (And August has officially made my list: August Milo George, debuting at #4!)
Yep, and boy is it a common one. Ethan James. Mr. Average. The problem is that I love classic names for boys, and if you do classic these days, chances are you’ll know a few Jameses, Ethans, Charleses, Williams, etc. But hey, I can look at myself in the mirror without flinching; I did NOT name my son Hayden, Braedon, Caeden, Jaiden, Aidan, or Payton. Meanwhile, we are friends with Leo, Christopher, Charles, & Joseph and don’t seem to run into many doubles at all. I have yet to meet another toddler called Ethan. I wonder how truly popular the name Ethan is when there are so very many ways to spell Jaedyn…
August Rush, maybe? With Freddie Highmore?
Hey ~DH~ (Nicole, are you? I forget). Where can I find this “August March”? I went to IMDb and can’t find it searching on google either. It’s weird. Would you post a link?
Not a thing in the world – except that it’s wildly popular, and my husband knows that my least favorite thing about having a son called Alexei is that it’s really too close to Alex, Alexis, Lexi and on and on and on.
I think that’s why my brain offered up Ethan Koolio. I could hear my husband defending it. “But it’s literary! You love Edith Wharton! And I chose a quirky, cross-cultural middle name that ends in o. That’s good, right? I thought you’d like it!”
And I’d be frantically gesturing, while still attached to IVs, saying “But Ethan’s been in the Top Ten since 2002!”
He’d reply, “What? I don’t know anyone called Ethan!” I’d start listing off toddlers and small boys called Ethan that we know, and he would say, “Oh. Yeah.”
Then he’d say, “Well, what about Koolio? You loved that Michelle Pfeiffer movie!”
And I’d sigh and say, “Yeah. But Coolio is spelled with a C.”
“It is?”
I think the female equivalent would be to wake up and discover that he’d named our daughter Emily Reagan or maybe Hannah Graclyn. I’m not married to the kind of guy who would ever come up with Jaidyn Messiah or J’Enyssiah Nevaeh, but I could see him choosing a name that’s SO close to what I would like … and falling short.
You have a son called Ethan, don’t you?
I’ll just be hiding under my dining room table for the rest of the afternoon.
What’s wrong with Ethan?
Oh, Lola, I like Augie, too!
August is pretty high on my list, especially because my husband is Polish. (As in, that’s his first language and most of his family is still there.) It would be effortlessly cross-cultural. Just when I thought I’d landed on the perfect boys’ name, however, he informed me that the trio of Polish kings bearing the name were considered disappointing, not national heroes. He was thinking more of Saint Augustine when he suggested the name.
The other night I had a nightmare that the ultrasound was wrong and baby #2 was a boy. Nothing wrong with that, but for some reason I was in a coma following the birth and my husband completed the birth certificate, and chose the name Ethan Koolio for our son. I woke up in reality just as I woke up in my dreaming – gasping for breath, and stunned that my darling husband would let me down so very, very much. 🙂 So I keep boy-name shopping, even though I don’t think we’ll ever need another.
Oh, Lola, August has a pretty high spot on my list too! It’s one of the few names my husband and I can agree on. He tends to like over-the-top, ancient names like Maximus and Apollo. I tend towards softer, more nature inspired names like Hugh and Kai. August is one that appeals to us both.
The movie that was out last year “August March” made me a bit nervous, as I think the name kind of made it’s way into the consciousness of the general public. But, I have yet to meet a little August and I only passingly hear it mentioned.
Such a great name . . .simultaneously handsome and pretty, ancient but perfectly at home in among more modern names. I really adore it.
I like August. A lot. 🙂 To the point that he’s begininng to show up on my own lists. I like his snap and history. He also honors my late mother indirectly, she was born 6 August, 1940. And boy, was she ever THE Leo. 😀 She might appreciate the nod.
I don’t care that it’s being swiped a bit by the girls, like Kelly, August will forever be masculine to me. But isn’t there some country singer that has a girl August too? *shrug* Don’t care. August feels wrong on a girl and I really don’t think Gussie is cute, despite having a Great Aunt (By marriage) called Gussie for Augusta. I love Gus on a boy and think Augie is cute in a “Augie Doggie” sort of way. In fact, calling a little August, Augie is what *really* makes me smile.
Yep, you nailed August, and I completely concur.