Edward
A masculine name of Old English origin meaning "wealthy guard".
Name Census estimates that about 641,974 living Americans carry the first name Edward. It sits at #228 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Edward today is around 59 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Edward births was 1924 (21,223 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Edward. 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 Edward with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Edward is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 5,361 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Edward have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
642K
~ 1 in 534 Americans
Peak year
1924
21,223 babies that year
Average age
59
years old
2024 SSA rank
#228
Tracked since 1880
Census
Edward in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 616,125 people with the first name Edward, which placed it at #67 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
#67
National first-name rank
People counted
616K
616,125 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
204.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
73.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Edward
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Edward is White at 73.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.8%) and Black (10.4%). 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 Edward 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 Edward at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White73.2% · 450,977
- Hispanic or Latino10.8% · 66,395
- Black or African American10.4% · 63,869
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.8% · 17,276
- Two or more races2.3% · 14,124
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 3,484
Gender
Gender distribution for Edward
Out of the 1,307,348 babies given the name Edward since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Edward as a male name
- Ranked #228 in 2024
- 1,584 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1924 (21,126 births)
Edward as a female name
- Ranked #17,290 in 2014
- 5 female births in 2014
- Peak: 1928 (138 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Edward appears almost entirely male. Of the 616,122 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Edward: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Edward from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 198,361 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Edward 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 Edward during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 23,133 | 69 | 23,202 |
| 1890s | 22,033 | 101 | 22,134 |
| 1900s | 24,516 | 85 | 24,601 |
| 1910s | 125,720 | 431 | 126,151 |
| 1920s | 197,347 | 1,014 | 198,361 |
| 1930s | 147,848 | 714 | 148,562 |
| 1940s | 174,798 | 518 | 175,316 |
| 1950s | 188,328 | 557 | 188,885 |
| 1960s | 143,980 | 676 | 144,656 |
| 1970s | 83,436 | 596 | 84,032 |
| 1980s | 60,833 | 424 | 61,257 |
| 1990s | 45,164 | 124 | 45,288 |
| 2000s | 30,827 | 47 | 30,874 |
| 2010s | 25,257 | 5 | 25,262 |
| 2020s | 8,767 | 0 | 8,767 |
Geography
Where Edwards live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, California recorded the most babies named Edward, while Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 24,189 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Edward
The name Edward originates from the Anglo-Saxon era in Britain, derived from the Old English words "ead" meaning prosperous or rich, and "weard" meaning guard or protector. It emerged as a popular name among the English nobility and royalty during the Middle Ages.
Edward was the name of several Anglo-Saxon kings, including Edward the Elder (c. 870-924), who successfully defended his kingdom against Viking invasions, and Edward the Martyr (c. 962-978), who was murdered at a young age. The name gained widespread recognition with Edward the Confessor (c. 1003-1066), one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England before the Norman Conquest.
The name Edward appeared in various ancient texts and historical records, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which documented the reigns of several English kings bearing the name. It also featured prominently in medieval literature, including the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Edward was Edward the Elder, who ruled as King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 to 924. Other notable historical figures named Edward include Edward I (1239-1307), known as the Hammer of the Scots for his military campaigns against Scotland, and Edward III (1312-1377), who led England to victory in the Hundred Years' War against France.
Edward VI (1537-1553) was a key figure in the English Reformation, ruling as the first Protestant monarch of England. Edward VII (1841-1910), son of Queen Victoria, presided over the British Empire at its peak during the Edwardian era. Edward VIII (1894-1972) famously abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Edward
People
Edward + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Edward as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Edward: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Edward?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 641,974 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Edward 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 534 US residents.
Is Edward a common name?
We classify Edward as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,307,348 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Edward most popular?
The single biggest year for Edward was 1924, when 21,223 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Edward is about 59 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Edward in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 616,125 people with the name Edward, or 204.00 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #67 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 Edward 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 Edward?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Edward appears almost entirely male. Of the 616,122 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Edward?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Edward is White at 73.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (10.8%) and Black (10.4%). 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 Edward most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Edward in the 2020 Census, accounting for 73.2% (450,977 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 Edward in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Edward a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Edward 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 Edward still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Edward 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 Edward 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 people are called Edward?
You can see how many people have the name Edward on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.