Lydia
About 187,317 American babies have been named Lydia since 1880, most of them around 2014. In 2025 it ranked 92nd. About 139,000 Lydias are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 23.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lydia boys named Lydia
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 187,317
- Estimated living today
- 139,000
- Median age today
- 23
- Peak year
- 2014
- Best rank
- 84th
- Rank in 2025
- 92nd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 187,039 / 278
How old the living Lydias are
born that year still alive today
Of the 187,317 babies given the name since 1880, about 139,000 are alive — 74 in every hundred. Roughly 55,000 of them are children and 20,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 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 Ancient Greek
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lydias
- Lydia Koidula (1843–1886)Estonian poet
- Lydia Litvyak (1921–1943)Soviet flying ace
- Lydia Davis (born 1947)American writer
- Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880)American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist
- Lydia of Thyatira (100–100)1st‑century Lydian merchant of purple cloth, Christian saint, early European convert to Christianity mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles
- Lydia Becker (1827–1890)British activist, botanist and astronomist
- Lydia Cacho (born 1963)Mexican journalist
- Lydia Lunch (born 1959)American singer, author and actress
People named Lydia with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lydia is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lydia is most concentrated in Utah (1.8×), Alaska (1.7×), New Mexico (1.6×), North Dakota (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2014
The most popular girls’ names the year Lydia peaked:
Lydia elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Lydia | 32,235 | 68th |
| England and Wales girls | Lydia | 18,670 | 50th |
| Ireland girls | Lydia | 1,194 | 130th |
| Norway girls | Lydia | 838 | 135th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Lydia | 630 | 73rd |
| Scotland girls | Lydia | 547 | 157th |
| Switzerland girls | Lydia | 527 | 270th |
| Belgium girls | Lydia | 485 | 405th |
| New Zealand girls | Lydia | 335 | 95th |
| Poland girls | Lydia | 52 birth registrations | 357th |
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.
Lydia: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Lydia | 251 | 0.020% | 249th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Lydia | 273 | 0.063% | 86th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Lydia | 3 | 0.005% | 188th |
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, Lydia is most concentrated in Fribourg, where 0.08% of children were given it – 53 of them.
Lydia: rank by region
In 2025, Lydia was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Lydia | 753 | 6 |
| Wallonia | Lydia | 210 | 13 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Lydia appears in the lists for Province of Liège (138th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Lydia by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 32 | 261st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Lydia 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 girls | Lydia | 5,108 | 7,847 |
| Finland girls | Lydia | 852 | 3,142 |
| the Netherlands boys | Lydia | — | 59 |
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 Lydia lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 9,982 women called Lydia were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guadalajara | Lydia | 93 | 0.662 | 211 |
| Valladolid | Lydia | 169 | 0.623 | 226 |
| Valencia/València | Lydia | 876 | 0.621 | 216 |
| Jaén | Lydia | 177 | 0.567 | 227 |
| Ávila | Lydia | 45 | 0.563 | 254 |
| Madrid | Lydia | 2,039 | 0.550 | 224 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Lydia 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.