Meaning and history
Santiago means “Saint James” and comes from Spanish santo, meaning “saint,” combined with Yago, an old Spanish form of James, the patron saint of Spain. It is the name of the main character in Ernest Hemingway’s 1951 novella The Old Man and the Sea, and it is also the name of Chile’s capital and several other cities in the Spanish-speaking world.
20062006: 1,552 births, rank #232
2007: 1,968 births, rank #200
2008: 2,340 births, rank #171
2009: 3,126 births, rank #130
2010: 3,012 births, rank #134
20112011: 3,070 births, rank #131
2012: 3,050 births, rank #122
2013: 3,032 births, rank #126
2014: 3,426 births, rank #116
2015: 3,219 births, rank #127
20162016: 3,719 births, rank #106
2017: 4,204 births, rank #93
2018: 4,670 births, rank #82
2019: 5,047 births, rank #70
2020: 4,687 births, rank #71
20212021: 5,076 births, rank #63
2022: 6,036 births, rank #49
2023: 6,358 births, rank #45
2024: 7,434 births, rank #29
20252025: 7,554 births, rank #26
Santiago has made a dramatic comeback. After first appearing in the US records in 1880, it fell to #992 by 1907, before climbing to #26 in 2025. That year also produced its highest recorded birth count, at 7,554.