Given name & surname
Hamlet
“from the little home”
Hamlet is used as a given name and a surname. One German interpretation is “from the little home.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
One German interpretation is “from the little home.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is German.
How it developed
From Latin Amlethus, from French Hamlet, from Old Danish Amlethæ.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
The name has a place in Shakespeare’s plays.
Hamlet through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 253
- 253 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2019
- 11 babies
- 2025
- 8
- #9,204 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 8 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 9,204 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Its largest published annual count for boys was 11 in 2019. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,013 as a first name in 2020; 3,089 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Hamlet’s family of names
Hamlet has a related form in Hamlett. Hamlet has a related form in Hamlit. Hamlet has a related form in Hamlitt.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 8
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 3
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 2
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Hamlet
- Hamlet IsakhanliAzerbaijani mathematicianborn 1948
- Hamlet Barrientosfootballerborn 1978
- Gamlet ZinkivskyUkrainian street artistborn 1986
- Hamlet A. GevorkyanArmenian philosopher (1927–2024)
Characters named Hamlet: Prince Hamlet (Shakespeare's play Hamlet).
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Hamlet, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Rhett
“a well-spoken man”
99% boys · 1% girls
Hansel
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Gerry
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Holden
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99% boys · 1% girls
Wolfram
“resembling a black wolf; a raven-wolf”
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Cedric
Cedric has an unusually traceable literary beginning: Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.
>99% boys
Wolf
“wolf”
>99% boys