# Irfan (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/irfan/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | boys |
| Origin | Arabic |
| Meaning | “knowledge” |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |
| US babies named this | 696 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 696 / 0 (0% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 514, 1996 to 2025 |

## Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic عِرْفَان (ʕirfān, “knowledge”). This given name is mostly found in Pakistan.

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 11 | 7,181 |
| 2012 | 12 | 6,774 |
| 2013 | 20 | 4,696 |
| 2014 | 20 | 4,762 |
| 2015 | 15 | 5,837 |
| 2016 | 15 | 5,894 |
| 2017 | 13 | 6,456 |
| 2018 | 23 | 4,412 |
| 2019 | 23 | 4,391 |
| 2020 | 16 | 5,545 |
| 2021 | 15 | 5,870 |
| 2022 | 23 | 4,484 |
| 2023 | 26 | 4,155 |
| 2024 | 17 | 5,522 |
| 2025 | 29 | 3,797 |

### England and Wales, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 24 | 1,087 |
| 2012 | 21 | 1,229 |
| 2013 | 21 | 1,183 |
| 2014 | 16 | 1,486 |
| 2015 | 13 | 1,786 |
| 2016 | 18 | 1,431 |
| 2017 | 20 | 1,289 |
| 2018 | 15 | 1,610 |
| 2019 | 8 | 2,488 |
| 2020 | 10 | 2,076 |
| 2021 | 5 | 3,451 |
| 2022 | 11 | 2,018 |
| 2023 | 10 | 2,160 |
| 2024 | 19 | 1,402 |
| 2025 | 14 | 1,798 |

## People named Irfan

- Irfan Smajlagić, Croatian handball player
- Irfan Ljubijankić, Bosniak musician, diplomat and politician (1952-1995)
- Irfan Horozović, Bosnian writer
- Irfan Makki, Canadian singer
- Irfan Shahid, American scholar in Oriental studies (1926–2016)

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.