Brady

84,835 people in America carry this name — ranked #621 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it BRAY dee

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

B R EY1 D IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 84,835 2020 Census
  • Rank #621 Familiar
  • As a surname 70,047 ranked #465 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Brady

Gaelic in origin, reading literally as “breada, handsome”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Brady has been given

92,944 babies were given this name since 1883. The busiest year was 2007, with 5,015 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00s 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Brady

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Brady Brian — same opening
  • Brady Benjamin — same opening
  • Brady Ethan — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Brady is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Boys or girls: who is called Brady?

97.9% men
1,749 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Same syllables and stress as Brady

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 89.6%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.6%
  • Two or more races — 3.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Where the name Brady is most common in the US

In North Dakota the name is given 4.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • North Dakota ×4.3
  • South Dakota ×3.0
  • Utah ×2.7
  • Minnesota ×2.5
  • Maine ×2.3

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Familiar

  • People counted84,835
  • Rank#621
  • Roughly1 in 3,907 people

Open the full entry

Open How Rare Is It? on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers