Ladan
Of Persian origin, meaning "lotus" or "born on a holy night".
Name Census estimates that about 212 living Americans carry the first name Ladan. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Ladan today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ladan births was 2001 (14 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ladan. 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.
People living today
212
~ 1 in 1,616,766 Americans
Peak year
2001
14 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2021 SSA rank
#14,452
Tracked since 1977
Popularity
Ladan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ladan from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 69 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ladan 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 Ladan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ladans live
Origin
Meaning and history of Ladan
The name Ladan is a Persian name derived from the ancient Persian word "ladan," meaning "frankincense" or "gum resin." Its roots can be traced back to the Avestan language, an ancient Iranian language spoken in parts of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
In ancient Persia, frankincense was highly valued for its aromatic properties and was used in religious ceremonies and as a precious offering to deities. The name Ladan may have been given to individuals associated with the production or trade of frankincense.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Ladan can be found in the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, written by the renowned Persian poet Ferdowsi in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. In this epic, Ladan is mentioned as the name of a character, though details about their significance are scarce.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Ladan. In the 13th century, Ladan Isfahani was a renowned Persian scholar and philosopher who made significant contributions to the field of logic and metaphysics. Another notable figure was Ladan Shah, a 16th-century Sufi saint and poet from the Indian subcontinent.
In more recent times, Ladan Arjomand was an Iranian-born American sociologist and professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who specialized in the study of social change and revolutions in the Middle East. He lived from 1943 to 2021.
Ladan Osman is a contemporary Somali-American poet and educator, known for her works exploring themes of identity, displacement, and the immigrant experience. She was born in 1978 and currently resides in the United States.
Ladan Mostofi is an Iranian-American electrical engineer and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, renowned for her contributions to the field of wireless sensor networks and robotics. She was born in 1980 and continues to be an active researcher and educator.
People
Ladan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ladan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ladan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ladan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 212 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ladan 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 1,616,766 US residents.
Is Ladan a common name?
We classify Ladan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 75% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 217 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ladan most popular?
The single biggest year for Ladan was 2001, when 14 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ladan is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Ladan a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Ladan in the SSA data are female. 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.
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.