Ove
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Meaning
probably a modern form of Old Danish Aghi, a short form of names with egg, "sword edge", or agi, "awe, fear"
How popular is Ove around the world?
In the United States, Ove is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source. In Norway, 7 boys were given the name Ove in 2025.
Ove is on the official records of Norway.
United States
under 5 a year
In the United States, Ove is not on the Social Security record for 2020 to 2025: names under 5 in a year are withheld at source.
Ove appears in US Social Security baby-name records only in small numbers: never enough in any decade to draw a popularity curve.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Norway
1 in 4,000register 2026
In Norway, 7 boys were given the name Ove in 2025.
share of the boys on the register for that year, SSB’s own figure
People who have or have had a Norwegian ID number, emigrants left out, from Statistics Norway’s name statistics (release of January 2026): by year of birth for 1945–2020 (everyone born that year who was ever registered in Norway, including people who registered later and people who have since died) and by year of naming from 2021; only first names carried by 200 or more living people are listed, counts under 4 are withheld, and SSB merges spellings that differ only by letters outside the Norwegian alphabet. The shares are SSB’s own, of the people of that sex and year in that count; the 2025 figure counts the children named that year, and no year is a count of births. Source: Statistics Norway (SSB), table 10467 (updated 2026-01-28)
Montevideo City
last on record 1986
Ove is not on the 2011 record for Montevideo, whose registry withholds nothing, so the spelling was not given there that year.
The count never rose above 2 in a year, too few to chart.
Births in the department of Montevideo (not all of Uruguay) by first name and year of birth, 1940–2011, from the city’s civil registry, which writes names in capitals, almost always without accents; counted as spelling groups (accent and punctuation variants merged), nothing is withheld at source, and 2012 is excluded as a partial year. Source: Servicio de Registro Civil, Intendencia de Montevideo, Partidas de Registro Civil de Montevideo (Licencia de Datos Abiertos - Uruguay); 2012 dropped as partial
South Australia
last on record 2016
Ove is not on the 2017 record for South Australia, whose registry publishes every name given that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births registered in South Australia (not all of Australia) by first name and year of registration, 1944–2017, from the state’s Births, Deaths and Marriages registry, which publishes every name down to a single birth in capitals; a spelling its export repeats inside a year is counted once, and from 2018 only a top 100 is published, so the series ends at 2017. Source: Consumer and Business Services (South Australia), popular baby names
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 France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. 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).
Keep exploring
The Ove deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Ove 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 Ove fits with your family’s names and surname.
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