Travis
Meaning
crossing, toll collector
Famously borne by Travis Rice, the big mountain snowboarder behind The Fourth Phase.
The story
Travis comes from the Old French traverser, to cross, and named the keeper of a river crossing or toll bridge, the person who saw everyone pass. That gives it a quiet sense of thresholds and passage. It carries real American history in William B. Travis, the young commander of the Alamo, remembered in legend for drawing a line in the sand and asking his men to cross it, and a thoroughly modern charge in the rapper Travis Scott. So the name spans frontier grit and current cool. Easygoing and friendly, with the ready short form Trav, it was a defining name of its era, most common in the United States in the 1990s. Warm, sturdy and unpretentious, Travis hands a child a name rooted in crossings and passage, worn by a frontier legend and a chart-topping star alike.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Travis peaked in the 1990s.
When you meet Travis
Most people given the name Travis in the United States were born between 1970 and 1999. The Travis you meet today is most often in his 30s or 40s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Travis deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Travis 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 Travis fits with your family’s names and surname.
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