Bedford
About 1,240 American babies have been named Bedford since 1880, most of them around 1924. It has not appeared in the national data since 2022. About 300 Bedfords are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 70.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Bedford
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,240
- Estimated living today
- 300
- Median age today
- 70
- Peak year
- 1924
- Best rank
- 1,117th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Bedfords are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,240 babies given the name since 1880, about 300 are alive — 24 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1955 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Bedfords
- Richard Bedford Bennett (1870–1947)11th Prime Minister of Canada
- Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877)Confederate States Army general
- Bedford Jezzard (1927–2005)English footballer
People named Bedford with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Bedford is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Bedford is most concentrated in Tennessee (31.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1924
The most popular boys’ names the year Bedford peaked:
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.