Hudson

65,102 people in America carry this name — ranked #767 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation Alpha.

Say it HUHD suhn

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

HH AH1 D S AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 65,102 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 21.6 about 1 in 5,091 people

Where Hudson comes from and what it means

Reads literally as “the son of Hod or Roger”.

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.

Hudson name popularity by year

75,512 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2020, with 6,909 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more 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 for Hudson

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

Better avoided

  • Hudson Nicholas — runs together
  • Hudson Nathan — runs together
  • Hudson Noah — 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.

A name of one moment

Almost everyone called Hudson was born in the 2020s. Before and after, the name is barely used — usually the mark of one famous bearer or one popular song.

Is Hudson a boy's or a girl's name?

98.0% men
1,300 women

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

Names with the same rhythm as Hudson

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.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 85.6%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 5.6%
  • Two or more races — 5.3%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.7%

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.

The states where Hudson is most common

In Idaho the name is given 2.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Idaho ×2.5
  • North Dakota ×2.4
  • South Dakota ×2.4
  • Utah ×2.3
  • Kansas ×1.8

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.

Try it Compare Two Names

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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