Connor peaked in 2004 at rank 38 and has slid steadily to 136 over two decades. The chart shape is one of the cleanest examples of the late-1990s Irish revival working through its full life cycle. Connor was the lead name of that wave; Aiden arrived next; both are now sliding together as the cohort ages out of current chart relevance. The data shows a complete arc from rise to peak to retreat.
The Old Irish king
Connor is the Anglicised form of the Irish Conchobhar (or Conchúr), a name from medieval Irish meaning roughly "lover of hounds" or "hound-friend," though some sources translate it as "lover of wolves" depending on which root is emphasised. The historical anchor is Conchobar mac Nessa, the legendary king of Ulster in the Ulster Cycle of medieval Irish mythology, particularly the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
The name was steady but small in Irish naming through the medieval and modern periods. American adoption is primarily a 1990s phenomenon, driven by Irish-American families researching deeper-cut heritage names. The 2004 peak coincided with the broader Irish-name wave that lifted Liam, Ryan, and Connor into the top 50 simultaneously.
The spelling fragmentation
Connor competes with Conor (the more historically standard Irish spelling), Konnor, and Conner. The SSA chart shows all four spellings in active use, which fragments the cumulative population in a way that masks the true scale of the name's American footprint. Connor is the dominant American spelling; Conor remains the dominant Irish spelling.
From a marketing read, Connor sits in the late-stage Irish-revival cohort: Aiden, Liam, Ryan, Connor. The cohort lifted together in the 1990s and 2000s and is now sliding together in the 2020s, replaced in the climbing position by deeper Celtic picks like Declan, Finn, and Cillian.
The counter-reading
The honest critique on Connor is the generational coding. The name belongs phonetically to the 1995-2010 chart window, and a child named Connor in 2025 is being placed into a generation where the name reads as older sibling rather than current cohort. For families with explicit Irish heritage the continuity argument holds; for fashion-driven naming the timing has passed. Common pairings favour clean middles: Connor James, Connor Patrick. The 2000s data shows Connor's original peak context, and the Irish-origin cluster shows where it sits among its peers.