Meaning and history
From an English surname meaning “forest,” originally given to someone who lived near a forest, Forrest has also sometimes been used in America in honor of Confederate Civil War general Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877). The name was borne by the title character of the 1994 film Forrest Gump, whose popularity briefly increased its use, followed by a decline and then a partial recovery.
20062006: 147 births, rank #1,149
2007: 142 births, rank #1,237
2008: 129 births, rank #1,334
2009: 166 births, rank #1,112
2010: 162 births, rank #1,143
20112011: 161 births, rank #1,126
2012: 154 births, rank #1,180
2013: 257 births, rank #833
2014: 338 births, rank #713
2015: 391 births, rank #660
20162016: 423 births, rank #631
2017: 460 births, rank #593
2018: 484 births, rank #570
2019: 583 births, rank #492
2020: 640 births, rank #462
20212021: 745 births, rank #414
2022: 794 births, rank #403
2023: 746 births, rank #424
2024: 794 births, rank #407
20252025: 850 births, rank #374
Forrest rose from #407 to #374 for boys between 2024 and 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 1994, with 1,343 births.