Edward
The boy's name Edward has been in the national records since 1880, with 1,308,955 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 224th. About 590,000 Edwards are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 60.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Edward boys named Edward
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,308,955
- Estimated living today
- 590,000
- Median age today
- 60
- Peak year
- 1924
- Best rank
- 9th
- Rank in 2025
- 224th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 5,361 / 1,303,594
How old the living Edwards are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,308,955 babies given the name since 1880, about 590,000 are alive — 45 in every hundred. Roughly 41,000 of them are children and 242,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1965 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Old English
From Middle English Edward, from Old English Ēadweard, from Proto-West Germanic *Audawardu, from Proto-Germanic *Audawarduz, corresponding to ed (“wealth, riches”) + ward (“ward, guard”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Edwards
- Edward Snowden (born 1983)American whistleblower and former NSA contractor
- Edward Jenner (1749–1823)English physician, scientist and pioneer of vaccination
- Edward VIII (1894–1972)King of the United Kingdom in 1936
- Edward VII (1841–1910)King of the United Kingdom from 1901 to 1910
- Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)English historian and politician
- Edward VI of England (1537–1553)king of England and Ireland from 1547 to 1553
- Edward Said (1935–2003)Palestinian-American professor
- Edward Norton (born 1969)American actor
People named Edward with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Edward is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Edward is most concentrated in Rhode Island (2.1×), Massachusetts (2.0×), Connecticut (1.9×), Pennsylvania (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1924
The most popular boys’ names the year Edward peaked:
Edward elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Edward | 54,597 | 26th |
| Ireland boys | Edward | 10,393 | 18th |
| New Zealand boys | Edward | 5,286 | 55th |
| France boys | Edward | 3,405 | 589th |
| Scotland boys | Edward | 3,082 | 52nd |
| Poland boys | Edward | 1,663 birth registrations | 102nd |
| Italy boys | Edward | 996 | — |
| Norway boys | Edward | 981 | 167th |
| Belgium boys | Edward | 770 | 261st |
| Northern Ireland boys | Edward | 523 | 108th |
| Switzerland boys | Edward | 227 | 475th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Edward: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Edward | 129 | 0.010% | 472nd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Edward | 82 | 0.019% | 288th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Edward | 16 | 0.025% | 131st |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Edward is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.04% of children were given it – 37 of them.
Edward: rank by region
In 2025, Edward was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Edward | 409 | 14 |
| Wallonia | Edward | 235 | 12 |
In 2024, Edward was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Edward | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Edward was given 2 times or more in 14 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Edward | 128 | 9 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Edward | 96 | 8 |
| Lubelskie | Edward | 125 | 3 |
| Łódzkie | Edward | 85 | 12 |
| Małopolskie | Edward | 79 | 24 |
| Mazowieckie | Edward | 96 | 29 |
| Opolskie | Edward | 73 | 7 |
| Podkarpackie | Edward | 116 | 5 |
| Podlaskie | Edward | 69 | 8 |
| Pomorskie | Edward | 96 | 14 |
| Śląskie | Edward | 115 | 13 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Edward | 95 | 5 |
| Wielkopolskie | Edward | 88 | 23 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Edward | 110 | 6 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Edward appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (218th) and Province of Antwerp (341st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Edward by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 29 | 295th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Edward among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Edward | 5,115 | 9,886 |
| Finland boys | Edward | 388 | 1,788 |
| the Netherlands girls | Edward | — | 37 |
| Finland girls | Edward | — | 9 |
Among boys in Finland this is mostly a middle name: of the 1,788 who carry it, 388 go by it.
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Edward lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 919 men called Edward were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Edward | 91 | 0.090 | 831 |
| Málaga | Edward | 63 | 0.072 | 820 |
| Ávila | Edward | 5 | 0.062 | 810 |
| Palmas, Las | Edward | 36 | 0.062 | 1,334 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Edward | 30 | 0.056 | 1,454 |
| Madrid | Edward | 183 | 0.054 | 1,029 |
Listed in 33 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 19 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Edward against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.