Oscar
Meaning
divine spear
Goes by Oz, Ozzie
Name day: March 24 in the Roman calendar of saints (Saint Óscar Romero).
The story
Oscar is old Irish legend: the mightiest warrior of the Fianna, grandson of the poet Oisín, his name usually traced to os, the Irish for deer. When the Ossian poems swept Europe in the late 1700s, Napoleon read them too, and his godson grew up to reign in Stockholm as Oscar I, which is why the name still sounds royal in Scandinavia. Dublin returned it to literature through Oscar Wilde. In US records Oscar has never really left: it has held a place in the rankings in every decade since the 1890s, thinning at midcentury, then filling out again around the turn of the millennium, kept warm all along by Spanish-speaking families. The Church's modern bearer is Oscar Romero, the San Salvador archbishop shot at the altar in 1980, canonized in 2018 and remembered each March 24. Deer, kings, poets, martyrs: a lot of history for five letters.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Oscar peaked in the 1890s.
Popularity in Brazil
31,552 people · the #786 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 6,452 · median age 56
Among people named Oscar living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1950s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 510 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Oscar
Most people given the name Oscar in the United States were born between 1970 and 2009. The Oscar 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 Oscar deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Oscar 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 Oscar fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Oscar travels
British and London · God's spear, deer-lover (Irish/Norse)
Global crossover · divine spear (Irish legendary hero; later carried by Swedish royalty after the Ossian poems); one of Sweden's top boys' names and a UK top-20 staple
Keep exploring
Names like Oscar · Nicknames for Oscar · British and London baby names · Global crossover names · Saint names for babies and confirmation
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