Yves
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Breton/Old French, from Germanic Ivo, 'yew'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/iv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Yves is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. In Cameroon it is the 28th most common given name.
- BEBelgium≈1 in 588(inferred from the name graph)
- CMCameroon≈1 in 598
- FRFrance≈1 in 771
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 398 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 588 (inferred from the name graph)
≈88,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Belgium, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Breton/Old French, from Germanic Ivo, 'yew'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yves 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #101 | ≈88,000 est. | ≈1 in 771 | 229K | Yves | 398 |
| CM Cameroon | #28 | ≈46,000 est. | ≈1 in 598 | — | Yves | 56 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #81 | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Yves | 37 |
| CN China | — | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 41K | — | Yves | 21 |
| BE Belgium | #60 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 588 | — | Yves | 179 |
| CH Switzerland | #107 | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 997 | — | Yves | 140 |
| US United States | — | 4,543 | 1 in 73K | 4.2K | Yves | 349 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. 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)
Yves is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Breton classic; Celtic origin, meaning 'if'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From a short form of a Germanic compound name containing the element iv- ‘yew’. St Yve was an r1th-century bishop of Chartres. Also: Yvon.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, a male given name, borne by two French saints, and known in medieval romance
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Du breton Ivo/iv, « if »; saint Yves de Tréguier (Kermartin), fêté le 19 mai.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du vieux breton Iuos/Ivoy, généralement rattaché au germanique ou au celtique ; prénom de saint breton.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Gilbert du Motier de La Fayetteb. 1757FRnot in their usual nameFrench general and politician (1757–1834)
- Yves Montandb. 1921FRFrench-Italian actor and singer (1921–1991)
- Yves Kleinb. 1928FR20th century French visual artist (1928–1962)
- Yves Chauvinb. 1930FRFrench chemist (1930–2015)
- Pierre-Gilles de Gennesb. 1932FRnot in their usual nameFrench physicist
- Yves Saint Laurentb. 1936FRFrench fashion designer (1936–2008)
- Yves Letermeb. 1960BEformer Belgian prime minister
- Stéphane Guivarc'hb. 1970FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1970)
- Charles Michelb. 1975BEnot in their usual nameBelgian politician, former Prime Minister of Belgium, President of the European Council
- Samuel Umtitib. 1993CMnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1993)
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)
Attested in 80 sources across 45 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 229K | #1,748 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.2K | #4,199 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 340 | #4,199 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1954 | 40 | #890 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 17 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 9 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you pronounce Yves?
- A machine transcription gives /iv/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Yves mean, and where does it come from?
- From Breton/Old French, from Germanic Ivo, 'yew'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Yves a male or female name?
- Yves is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Yves?
- In the etymology graph, Erwan, Maryvonne and Erwann are forms of the same name in other languages; Yvon is a recorded short or pet form.
- In which country does Yves have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 88 thousand people named Yves in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yves.
- How common is the name Yves?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,543 people named Yves in 2020, about 1 in 73 thousand residents.
- How common is Yves compared with other names?
- In France, Yves is the 101st most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Yves?
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/yvesThe 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, “Yves” — the 101st most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.