Virgil
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Latin Virgilius; first attested Uirgilius clericus 1177–93 CartNat (A Dictionary of English Surnames)
A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 32 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈvɜːdʒɪl/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Virgil is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 24,101 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2020.
- SGSingapore≈1 in 5.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 6.3Kfew records
- CACanada≈1 in 8.5K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 420 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
24,101 people, 2020
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Romania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Virgil
- English:/ˈvɜːdʒɪl/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from Latin Virgilius; first attested Uirgilius clericus 1177–93 CartNat
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Virgil, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Virgil counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #803 | 24,101 | 1 in 14K | 24K | Virgil | 420 |
| RO Romania | — | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Virgil | 47 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 6 | Virgil | 95 |
| CA Canada | #933 | ≈4,900 est. | ≈1 in 8.5K | 1 | Virgil | 83 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈4,800 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Virgil | 56 |
| SG Singapore | #524 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Virgil | 13 |
| IE Ireland | #393 | ≈850 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | — | Virgil | 10 |
24,101 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Virgil is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, relationship name from the Latin personal name Virgilius. Further information: The Latin personal name survived in the Middle Ages because the Latin poet Virgil (70–19 BC), though a pre-Christian pagan, was interpreted as a herald of Christianity.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
In English, Pūblius Vergilius Marō (70–19 BCE), Roman epic writer from the Augustan period, best known for writing the Aeneid.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Maidenly pure
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Virgil Ivan Grissomb. 1926USAmerican astronaut (1926–1967)
- Virgil Ablohb. 1980USAmerican fashion designer (1980-2021)
- Virgil van Dijkb. 1991NLDutch association football player (born 1991)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)56 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 32 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Virgil mean, and where does it come from?
- from Latin Virgilius; first attested Uirgilius clericus 1177–93 CartNat Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Virgil a male or female name?
- Virgil is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), France (INSEE, 2024), Netherlands (Meertens NVB) and Spain (INE), among others.
- What are other forms of the name Virgil?
- In the etymology graph, Virgilio, Vergil and Virgílio are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Virgil?
- In English /ˈvɜːdʒɪl/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people named Virgil?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 24 thousand people named Virgil, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled virgil. After it come Romania, United Kingdom, Canada and Philippines; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Virgil?
- In the United States, the national register counted 24,101 people named Virgil in 2020, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.
- How common is Virgil compared with other names?
- In the United States, Virgil is the 803rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Virgil?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/virgilThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Virgil” — ranked 1418th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2020). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.