Adair
A Celtic name meaning "ford across the river".
Name Census estimates that about 2,690 living Americans carry the first name Adair. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 55.3% of registrations being male. The average person named Adair today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Adair births was 2007 (120 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Adair. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Adair with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Adair was once a predominantly female name but has become increasingly popular for boys in recent decades.
- • Adair sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
2.7K
~ 1 in 127,418 Americans
Peak year
2007
120 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,363
Tracked since 1914
Census
Adair in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,415 people with the first name Adair, which placed it at #6,596 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#6,596
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,415 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
48.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Adair
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adair is White at 48.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (39.2%) and Black (8.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Adair described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Adair at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White48.1% · 1,162
- Hispanic or Latino39.2% · 947
- Black or African American8.4% · 202
- Two or more races2.5% · 61
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 23
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 20
Gender
Gender distribution for Adair
Adair is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 3,127 total registrations, 1,730 (55.3%) were male and 1,397 (44.7%) were female.
Adair as a male name
- Ranked #2,363 in 2024
- 59 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2007 (100 births)
Adair as a female name
- Ranked #5,600 in 2024
- 22 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (35 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Adair on both sides of the split. Of the 2,412 people counted with this name, 1,248 were male (51.7%) and 1,164 were female (48.3%).
Popularity
Adair: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Adair from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 803 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Adair remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Adair by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Adair during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Adairs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 9 states and territories. California, Texas, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Adair, while Colorado, Arizona, Oregon recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 69 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Adair
The name Adair has its origins in the Gaelic language, derived from the Old Irish word "athar," meaning "ford" or "shallow crossing." It is believed to have originated in the medieval period, when it was used as a topographic surname referring to someone who lived near a ford or a shallow river crossing.
The earliest recorded use of Adair as a first name dates back to the 12th century in Scotland, where it was primarily used as a surname by families living in the Scottish Lowlands. One of the earliest documented references to the name is in the Ragman Rolls of 1296, a record of homage sworn to King Edward I of England by Scottish nobles and landowners.
In the 16th century, the name gained prominence with the rise of the Adair family, a Scottish clan based in County Antrim, Ireland. The most notable member of this family was Sir Robert Adair (1763-1855), a British diplomat and politician who served as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and later as Governor of Bombay.
Another influential figure bearing the name Adair was John Adair (1757-1840), an American soldier and politician who fought in the American Revolutionary War and later served as Governor of Kentucky from 1820 to 1824.
In the realm of literature, Adair appears in the works of Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), who featured characters with this name in his novels, such as "The Bride of Lammermoor" and "The Heart of Midlothian."
One of the most famous bearers of the name Adair in the 20th century was Adair Craigmill (1913-1989), an American journalist and author known for her work as a war correspondent during World War II and the Korean War.
Another notable figure was Adair Crawford (1748-1795), an American pioneer and Revolutionary War soldier who played a significant role in the settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee.
While the name Adair has its roots in Scotland and Ireland, it has also been adopted and used in other parts of the world, particularly in North America and Australia, where it has gained popularity as a given name for both males and females.
People
Adair + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Adair as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Adair: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Adair?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,690 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Adair going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 127,418 US residents.
Is Adair a common name?
We classify Adair as "Rare". It ranks above 94.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 3,127 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Adair most popular?
The single biggest year for Adair was 2007, when 120 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Adair is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Adair in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,415 people with the name Adair, or 0.80 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,596 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Adair in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Adair?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Adair on both sides of the split. Of the 2,412 people counted with this name, 1,248 were male (51.7%) and 1,164 were female (48.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Adair?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adair is White at 48.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (39.2%) and Black (8.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Adair most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Adair in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.1% (1,162 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Adair in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Adair a male name?
Yes, 55.3% of people registered as Adair in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Adair still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Adair in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Adair can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Adair?
See how many people have the name Adair on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.