Hafez
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Meaning
guardian, one who has memorized the Quran; Hafez of Shiraz, one of Persian literature's most beloved lyric poets
The story
Hafez is Arabic for guardian, the honorific given to one who has memorized the entire Quran, and it belongs above all to one man: the fourteenth-century poet of Shiraz whose ghazals made him a summit of Persian literature. Seven centuries later his Divan is still treasured in Iranian homes, opened at random on winter nights so a verse can tell the family's fortune, and his tomb in Shiraz draws visitors the way other cities' cathedrals do. Goethe read him in translation and wrote an entire book in answer. In American records Hafez has been vanishingly rare, registering its first flicker only in the most recent decade, which makes it that unusual thing: a genuinely rare pick backed by seven hundred years of devotion, a name practically unused here and utterly beloved somewhere else.
How popular is Hafez around the world?
In the United States, 11 babies were named Hafez between 2020 and 2025.
Hafez is on the official records of the United States.
United States
1 in 2M
In the United States, 11 babies were named Hafez between 2020 and 2025.
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Hafez has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the Austria record for 1984 to 2025: Statistik Austria publishes every first name down to a single birth, so this name was not given there in those years (before 2010 the record covers babies with Austrian citizenship only). Not on Norway’s list: Statistics Norway lists only first names carried by 200 or more living people, so rarer names are not shown.
Keep exploring
The Hafez deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Hafez 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 Hafez fits with your family’s names and surname.
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