Given name & surname
Urban
“city-dweller”·“from the city”
Urban is used as a given name and a surname. Interpretations include “city-dweller” (Latin) and “from the city” (Latin). These may reflect different naming traditions.
Original LatinUrbanus
Meaning & origin
What it means
Interpretations include “city-dweller” (Latin) and “from the city” (Latin). These may reflect different naming traditions.
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Latin.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1880. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Urban through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 3,264
- 3,264 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1924
- 104 babies
- 2025
- 18
- #5,374 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- −37%
- Cooling
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 18 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 5,374 among boys’ names. Average annual use for boys was 36.8% lower in 2021–2025 than in 2016–2020. Its largest published annual count for boys was 104 in 1924. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,207 as a first name in 2020; 19,034 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.
Urban’s family of names
Urban has an affectionate form in Ur(b)a. Urban shares a linguistic root with Orbán. In English usage, Urban has a conventional equivalent in the Portuguese form Urbano.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Around the world
Urban has relatives in 18 languages. Lines run from its Latin roots to each of them.
Latinwhere Urban comes from · 1 name
Nicknames & forms 20
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 11
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
- Urianequivalent
- Urvoequivalent
- Urboequivalent
- Urpocognate · Finnish
- Urbanováfeminine form
- ΟὐρβανόςAncient Greek
- ΟυρβανόςGreek
- UrbonasLithuanian
Show 3 moreShow fewer
See also 2
Names our sources mention alongside this one. They are related in story or meaning, not forms of this name.
People named Urban
- Orbáninventor, iron founder, and engineer (XVth c.)1404–1453
- Urban GadDanish filmmaker (1879-1947)
- Urban of Macedoniaone of the Seventy disciples according to Pseudo-Hippolytus
- Urban HettichGerman Nordic combined skierborn 1953
- Urban AhlinSwedish Social Democratic Party politician and Speaker of the Riksdag since 2014born 1964
- Urban FrancOlympic ski jumperborn 1975
- Urban LesjakSlovene handball playerborn 1990
- Urban HjärneSwedish scholar, chemist and physicist (1641-1724)
- Urban LindgrenSwedish cross-country skierborn 1973
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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