Sanford
The boy's name Sanford has been in the national records since 1880, with 15,044 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 6,803rd. About 5,500 Sanfords are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 67.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Sanford
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 15,044
- Estimated living today
- 5,500
- Median age today
- 67
- Peak year
- 1929
- Best rank
- 311th
- Rank in 2025
- 6,803rd
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Sanfords are
born that year still alive today
Of the 15,044 babies given the name since 1880, about 5,500 are alive — 36 in every hundred. Roughly 220 of them are children and 3,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1958 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 a surname
Reduced variant of Sandford.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Sanfords
- Sanford B. Dole (1844–1926)American judge
- Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–1880)American painter
- Sanford Meisner (1905–1997)American actor and acting teacher
- Sanford Bishop (born 1947)American politician
People named Sanford with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sanford is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sanford is most concentrated in New York (3.0×), Hawaii (2.5×), Alabama (2.2×), Ohio (2.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1929
The most popular boys’ names the year Sanford peaked:
Related names
Sanford 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.