How Many People Are Named Alter?
people named Alter are alive in the United States today (estimate)
About 1 in 949,402 people in the US has this name
Based on 426 babies named Alter in Social Security records from 1914 to 2025, and the share of each birth year still alive in 2025.
Popularity Rank
💎💎 Very Rare
Peak Year
21 births
Trend
Stable (last 10 years)
📖 Name Origin & Meaning
Meaning:
Means "old" in Yiddish. This name was traditionally given to a sickly newborn by Jewish parents in order to confuse the Angel of Death, in the hopes that he would go looking for somebody younger or somebody else.
Source of the meaning, origin, pronunciation and related names: Behind the Name.
Related & Similar Names
⚧ Gender Distribution
All of the babies given the name Alter in the records were boys.
👥 Age Distribution
The average person named Alter alive today is about 21 years old, and 80% are under 30. Half of them were between 10 and 27 in 2025.
📈 Popularity Over Time
Alter first appears in the records in 1914 and was given most often in 2012, to 21 babies. In 2025, 15 babies got the name.
Babies given the name each year, 1914 to 2025
🏆 Rank History
Alter has never been one of the 100 most popular boys' names. Its best rank was #3,281, in 1933. In 2025 it ranked #5,867.
| Boys | |
|---|---|
| Rank in 2025 | #5,867 |
| Best rank | #3,281 (1933) |
| Years in the top 100 | None |
| Rank in its biggest decade | #6,744 in the 2000s |
📍 State-Wise Distribution
People named Alter alive today, by the state where they were born (estimate; state records start in 1910).
More people named Alter were born in New York than in any other state: about 168 of those alive today. Compared with the national rate in the same years, Alter was given about 15.2 times as often in New York.
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