August

Where August comes from

Early Middle English August(us), re-Latinized from Old English Agustus, from Late Latin Agustus, from Latin augustus (“month of August”), from the agnomen Augustus (“venerable”) of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, possibly from either Old Latin *augos (“increase”), from Proto-Italic *augos, from Proto-Indo-European base *h₂ewg- (“to increase”); or Latin avis (“bird”), referring to divination by observing bird flights, singing, feeding or entrails + garrīre (“to chatter”). Doublet of august and Augustus.
— Wiktionary's entry for August
  • Latin
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1829
    August Kekulé born
    German organic chemist
  2. 1840
    August Bebel born
    German social democrat politician
  3. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #74 among boys — 210 babies in the first year on record.
  4. 1882
    Peak, #74
    234 babies named August — more than any year before or since.
  5. 2025
    The comeback
    Back to #81 after sinking to #930 in 1983.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from English derived from the month (of birth).
  • A male given name from Latin.
  • A census-designated place in San Joaquin County, California, United States.
Namesakes
  • August Bebel · German social democrat politician, 1840–1913
  • August Kekulé · German organic chemist, 1829–1896
  • August Krogh · Danish physiologist, 1874–1949
  • August Macke · German painter of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, 1887–1914
  • August Ferdinand Möbius · German mathematician and astronomer, 1790–1868

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.