Acadia
Feminine
Acadia was a French colony in what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine, and its name has two possible parents that could hardly be further apart: a Greek pastoral paradise put on a map by an Italian navigator, and a Mi'kmaq word for a place of plenty. Both accounts are seriously held.
How old is the name Acadia?
Acadia first appears in US birth records in 1983 — 42 years ago. The typical Acadia alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,100 people named Acadia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Acadia most popular?
Acadia peaked in 2018, reaching #2744 nationally. Today it ranks #4987, 2,243 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Arcadia to Acadia
The story of Acadia
The Acadians farmed the tidal marshes of the Bay of Fundy for a century and a half, building dikes rather than clearing forest, until the British deported them in 1755 and scattered them along the coast and to Louisiana, where their descendants became the Cajuns. The word Cajun is Acadian worn down. The name of the place is now carried by a national park in Maine and, increasingly, by American daughters, most often in families with a connection to that history.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Two roads. A sixteenth-century navigator labeled part of the coast Arcadia after the Greek region that stood for pastoral peace, and the r may have dropped over time. Alternatively, the Mi'kmaq suffix -akadie, meaning a place of abundance of something, appears in many local place names and may have been heard as the same word. Historians have not settled it.
How the name formed
- Arcadia
- Acadie
- Acadia
Related forms: Acadie · Arcadia
Pronouncing Acadia
uh-KAY-dee-uh
Four syllables, stress on the second. The French Acadie is said ah-kah-DEE with the weight at the end.
Nicknames for Acadia
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1983
- Most girls named
- 201862 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2744reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- −25.7%26 in 2025, from 35
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Acadia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Acadie in French — same name
- Arcadia in Greek — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Massachusetts, Maine.
Acadias among us
people named Acadia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 61,818 born in 2025 was named Acadia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Valisa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Acadia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Valisa climbed just as high around 1965, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Valisa's path sketches the road Acadia is walking now.
Acadia sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Acadia is headed
Acadia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Acadia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Acadia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It names a real place and a real history that can be visited and read about.
- Cadie and Cade are ready short forms and both are complete names.
- It is genuinely uncommon while every sound in it is familiar.
- Four syllables is long for American forms and gets clipped without being asked.
- Its origin is genuinely disputed, so a child looking it up will find two answers.
- Arcadia and Acadia differ by one letter and are constantly confused.
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What they receive
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Acadia
Feminine · #4987 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Acadias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Acadia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Acadia in 2025?
- Acadia ranks #4987 among US girl names in 2025, with 26 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Acadia?
- About 1 in every 61,818 US girls born in 2025 was named Acadia — 26 in all.
- Will my child share the name Acadia with classmates?
- Acadia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Acadia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Perri#4987 · Giannina#4987 · Karisma#4987 · Zuleyka#4987 · Mccall#4987 · Makinley#4987 · Jayani#4987 · Mela#4987
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Acadia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Acadia and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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