Lydia

139,560 people in America carry this name — ranked #403 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it LIH dee uh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

L IH1 D IY0 AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 139,560 2020 Census
  • Rank #403 Common

Where Lydia comes from and what it means

Greek in origin, reading literally as “of Lydia”.

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.

Lydia name popularity by year

173,253 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2014, with 3,643 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 Lydia

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Lydia Lisa — same opening
  • Lydia Ashley — runs together
  • Lydia Laura — same opening

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.

Never out of use

Lydia has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

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

0.1% men
139,374 women

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

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Names with the same rhythm as Lydia

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 — 3 syllables, stress on the first

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

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 7.8%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 23.2%
  • Two or more races — 3.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 5.6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

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.

Where in America Lydia is thickest on the ground

In Utah the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Utah ×1.9
  • Maine ×1.9
  • Minnesota ×1.7
  • Idaho ×1.7
  • Alaska ×1.6

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.

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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
Other names of Greek origin