Hannibal
Meaning
grace of Baal (the Carthaginian general); immortalized by Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The story
Hannibal is Phoenician, grace of Baal, and it belongs first to the Carthaginian general who marched war elephants across the Alps and came closer than anyone to breaking Rome. For centuries that audacity made it an honorable if bold choice: Abraham Lincoln's first vice president was Hannibal Hamlin, and Mark Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, the river town he turned into Tom Sawyer's world. Then 1991 gave the name a very different face: Hannibal Lecter, the brilliant, courtly cannibal of The Silence of the Lambs, played by Anthony Hopkins in an Oscar-winning performance that lodged the name permanently in the popular imagination. Through it all, American parents have mostly admired from a safe distance: decade after decade, Hannibal keeps to the quiet far edge of the records, a name of tremendous history that has never been more than a rare pick, which, for the boldest, is precisely the appeal.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Hannibal has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
When you meet Hannibal
Most people given the name Hannibal in the United States were born between 1970 and 2019. The Hannibal you meet today is most often in his 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Hannibal deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Hannibal 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 Hannibal fits with your family’s names and surname.
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