Fausto
Meaning
the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of Faustus, a Roman cognomen meaning "auspicious, lucky"
The story
Fausto is the Latin good-luck name: the Roman cognomen Faustus meant "auspicious, lucky," and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese all kept it whole. The most famous bearer pedaled rather than philosophized: Fausto Coppi, the Italian cyclist who dominated the sport around 1950 and whom the source itself singles out. Brazil's census counted 10,934 men named Fausto, 2,196 of them born in the 1970s and 2,480 in the 1980s. The United States line is long and unhurried: 16 boys in the 1910s, three-digit decades through midcentury, then 446 in the 1980s, 529 in the 1990s, 539 in the 2000s, 352 in the 2010s, 181 so far this decade. A century of steady, quiet luck under the radar. Goethe's Faust spelled it differently and made a far riskier deal; the Latin original never needed the devil's help.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Fausto peaked in the 2000s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
10,934 people · the #1,604 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 18,519 · median age 50
Among people named Fausto living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 51 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Fausto deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Fausto truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Fausto fits with your family’s names and surname.
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