Todd

238,713 people in America carry this name — ranked #238 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it TAHD

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

T AA1 D — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 238,713 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 79.0 about 1 in 1,388 people
  • As a surname 68,395 ranked #478 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Todd

Reads literally as “tod, a Scotch word for a fox”.

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.

Todd name popularity by year

282,897 babies were given this name since 1881. The busiest year was 1964, with 15,398 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. 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 for Todd

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Todd David — runs together
  • Todd Daniel — runs together
  • Todd Thomas — 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.

A name and a surname

Todd is carried in front of the comma and behind it — thousands of Americans have it as a surname too.

Boys or girls: who is called Todd?

99.9% men
226 women

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

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 91.7%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 3.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 1.4%
  • Two or more races — 2.2%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 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 Todd is thickest on the ground

In South Dakota the name is given 3.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • South Dakota ×3.4
  • North Dakota ×3.2
  • Iowa ×2.8
  • Vermont ×2.7
  • Wisconsin ×2.5

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.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs 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