The name Gavin is of Welsh origin and means ‘white hawk’ or ‘fair falcon’. It is composed of the words ‘gwyn’ meaning white or fair, and ‘gwalch’ meaning hawk or falcon. Gavin is often associated with freedom, strength, and determination.
Gavin is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The first name Gavin is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #82 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Gavin, accounting for approximately 0.30 % of all newborn boys. In the entire USA, approximately 182,459 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Gavin. That is 0.05 % of all living Americans.
The name Gavin is of Welsh origin and means ‘white hawk’ or ‘fair falcon’. It is composed of the words ‘gwyn’ meaning white or fair, and ‘gwalch’ meaning hawk or falcon. Gavin is often associated with freedom, strength, and determination.
What is the difference between hawks and falcons? They are both birds of prey, but they belong to different scientific families. Hawks are generally smaller, have shorter wings, and a longer tail. They fly slowly while soaring, whereas falcons are known for their speed and agility.
Gavin Rossdale (*1965)
Rossdale is an English guitarist and singer, best known as the lead singer of the rock band Bush from 1992 to 2002. After which, he was a member of the band Institute and had a solo career until Bush reunited in 2010. As an actor, he appeared in movies such as Zoolander (2001) and Constantine (2005).
Gavin Creel (*1976)
Primarily a stage actor, Creel debuted on Broadway in 2002. He has received multiple important awards and nominations and also works as a pop musician. Creel lives openly gay and is an activist in the pursuit of marriage equality.
Gavin Free (*1988)
The internet personality is known for his work as a cinematographer, director, and actor. He created the YouTube-web series The Slow Mo Guys in 2010, the sites biggest channel for slow motion videos. His expertise has been requested for major Hollywood productions such as Snow White and the Huntsman (2012).
Gavin Newsom (*1967)
Newsom is an American politician and businessman. As a member of the Democratic Party, he served as mayor of San Francisco and later as governor of California. Newsom hosted his own weekly one-hour talk show The Gavin Newsom Show from 2012 to 2013.
When you hear the name Gavin, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Gavin? Are you also called Gavin? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
in British Columbia, Canada is called The Gavin Lake Forest Education Center. Volunteers offer free outdoor education programs to schools.
in Cheshire, Ohio is named Gavin Power Plant. It is one of the largest of its kind in the US, powering two million homes.
you can find a settlement called Gavin, which has about 100 inhabitants. It is part of the autonomous region Aragon.
This is a real surprise! Gavin is a name that has been around for a long time, but only really took off in the 21st century. In the year 2008, it reached its best rank at #31 according to our SmartGenius statistics. This makes Gavin much more popular than in previous generations, where it was so rare for several years that it was not even recorded in the statistics. While the name Gavin was observed for the first time ever in 1913, it now seems to have found its place in the zeitgeist of the 21st century. In 2008, the year of its highest popularity, the name was given a total of 11,780 times. Whether this beautiful boys' name can repeat or even exceed its previous best ranking in the coming years remains to be seen, but the prospects are promising given the positive trend.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Gavin was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, Gavin ranked #206 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to baby boys a total of 1,790 times. No one knows what names (or combinations of numbers and letters) will be popular 50 years from now, but given its popularity in the early years of this millennium, there is a good chance that Gavin will not disappear from the screen anytime soon.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Gavin is one of them. However, Gavin is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Nevada seem to particularly fancy this name – the 1,447 men called Gavin who live here are 0,256% of all male residents and push their name up to #99 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Nevada. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 182,459 people with the name Gavin. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Gavin on position 184 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top male names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat 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 G is not really common as a first letter for boys' names: only 2.8% of all common boys' names in the US begin with G. By the way, the most common first letters of boys' names are J, A and D, while X, U and Q are the least common initials of boys' names.
With five letters, the name Gavin is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. 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.
That means that with 2.8% of all boys' names beginning with a G, this initial letter is less common than the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are boys' names with G that are quite popular, the most common at present is George.
If your name is Gavin 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 Gavin, you can simply say:
Goat
Apple
Violin
Igloo
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Gavin
Gavin
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
G
A
V
I
N
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.
G
A
V
I
N
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. Gavin sounds like this:
