Cooper is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The first name Cooper is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #77 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Cooper, accounting for approximately 0.30 % of all newborn boys. In the entire USA, approximately 103,622 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Cooper. That is 0.03 % of all living Americans.
The name Cooper is derived from the Old English word ‘cuppere’ and it means ‘barrel maker’ or ‘barrel worker’. In the past, barrels were used to store and transport a wide variety of goods, so the job of a cooper was an important one. Cooper is often associated with hard work, craftsmanship, and attention to detail.
Did you know… that the spelling copper was first used around 1530. It originates from the Latin 'cuprum'.
Cooper Kupp (*1993)
He is an American football wide receiver playing in the NFL. He was selected in the third round of the 2017 Draft by the Los Angeles Rams. In 2022, he won the Super Bowl with the Rams and was the games MVP. Kupp achieved numerous receiving records in the NFL.
Cooper Smeaton (1890 - 1978)
Smeaton was the first referee-in-chief of the National Hockey League from 1917 to 1937. In 1930, he unsuccessfully coached the Philadelphia Quakers for one season. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961.
When you hear the name Cooper, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Cooper? Are you also called Cooper? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
are named Cooper Lake. They are located in New York, Texas, and Washington, for example. In Australia, you can find Lake Cooper.
in the US bear the name Cooper Mountain. They are located in Colorado, Oregon, and West Virginia.
is a tidal river in South Carolina. The cities of Charleston, North Charleston, and Hanahan are located along it, among others. Another Cooper River exists in New Jersey.
are called Cooper Island. You can find them in New Zealand, the Palmyra Atoll, and the British Virgin Islands.
name for cities in the United States. There are more than a dozen of them, for example located in California, Maine, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas.
bears the name Cooper. Its diameter is more than 22 miles and it was named for John Cobb Cooper Jr., a jurist who specialized in international space law.
#53 - this is the highest rank Cooper has ever achieved. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of recording. The last time Cooper reached this top spot was in 2022 when 5,752 newborn boys were given this name. But as our statistics show, Cooper hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1908, not a single newborn or less than 5 were named Cooper (a name is only included in the official statistics if it has been given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Cooper has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well into our time today. From zero to hero - even though it took a while for Cooper to really catch on, it has become a very popular name.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Cooper was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The name Cooper may not be in the top rankings of the most popular boys’ names, but it is one of the few male given names, along with only 385 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Cooper is apparently especially popular in Utah. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular men’s names here either, one in 504 men in Utah is called Cooper. In total, that’s 2,702 people who feel addressed when the name Cooper is shouted loudly across Utah and who ensure that their name makes it to #133 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common male names in this nice state. If you asked all people in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Cooper as the answer a total of 103,622 times. This places Cooper at #278 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular male names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living people across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Cooper as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter C is a frequent initial letter for boys’ names. This is because 5.2% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of boys' names, by the way, are J, A and D.
With six letters, the name Cooper is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
With 5.2% of all boys' names that begin with a C, this first letter is thus much more common than the average of all letters. And which boys’ name beginning with C do you think is the most common in the US? The answer is... Charles.
If your name is Cooper and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Cooper, you can simply say:
Cat
Orange
Orange
Pig
Elephant
Rocket
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Cooper
Cooper
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
C
O
O
P
E
R
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
C
O
O
P
E
R
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Cooper sounds like this:
