Rudi
Rudi is a boy's name that peaked in 1978, when it was the 2,375th most popular in the United States. Its origin is given as German. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 8,910th. About 1,100 Rudis are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 32.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Rudi boys named Rudi
Girls and boys called Rudi
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 485 girls and 761 boys in all, and in 2004 the split was 14 to 14.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 13 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,246
- Estimated living today
- 1,100
- Median age today
- 32
- Peak year
- 1978
- Best rank
- 2,375th
- Rank in 2025
- 8,910th
- First recorded
- 1931
- Girls / boys
- 485 / 761
How old the living Rudis are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,246 babies given the name since 1931, about 1,100 are alive — 92 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1993 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 German
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Rudis
- Rudi Völler (born 1960)German footballer and manager
- Rudi Vata (born 1969)Albanian association football player
- Rudi Garcia (born 1964)French football manager
- Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979)German student activist
- Rudi Skácel (born 1979)Czech footballer
- Rudi Carrell (1934–2006)entertainer on Dutch and German television
- Rudi Altig (1937–2016)German racing cyclist
- Rudi Fischer (1912–1976)Swiss racing driver
People named Rudi with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rudi is most common
Across the country Rudi is recorded 0.03 times per 100,000 births, so these are the states above that line. Only states with 50 or more recorded Rudis are ranked here: below that a handful of births makes a rate that moves on chance alone.
Counts favour the big states, which is why the same few lead this list for almost every name.
Births recorded in each state since 1910. A name given to fewer than five babies in one state in one year is not published, so a name's quietest states are missing from this rather than showing zero. Browse names by state.
Names of 1978
The most popular boys’ names the year Rudi peaked:
Rudi elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Rudi | 1,823 | 334th |
| Norway boys | Rudi | 473 | 195th |
| France boys | Rudi | 450 | 608th |
| Scotland boys | Rudi | 391 | 145th |
| England and Wales girls | Rudi | 132 | 2,673rd |
| Northern Ireland boys | Rudi | 93 | 193rd |
| Ireland boys | Rudi | 22 | 676th |
| Scotland girls | Rudi | 11 | 363rd |
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.
Rudi by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 24 | 354th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Rudi 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 | Rudi | 3,834 | 4,460 |
| the Netherlands girls | Rudi | 67 | 174 |
| Finland boys | Rudi | 111 | 142 |
| Finland girls | Rudi | — | 5 |
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.
Related names
Rudi 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.