Adair
Feminine · “Wealthy spear”
Adair is given to both — 1,420 girls and 1,797 boys since 1880. See Adair as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Adair is a Scottish surname with an English name inside it: the usual derivation runs from Edgar through a Scots form Edzear to Adair, which is a long way for four letters to travel. It has been used for both sexes in America.
How old is the name Adair?
Adair first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Adair alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,200 people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adair most popular?
Adair peaked in 1951, reaching #2391 nationally. Today it ranks #5410, 3,019 places below that high. See the whole 1951 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Edgar to Adair
The story of Adair
The Adairs were a Galloway family who moved to Ulster in the seventeenth century plantation, and the surname is common in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. Emigration carried it to America, where it appears as a given name from the nineteenth century in the general surname fashion. Its use for girls is small and steady rather than dramatic, peaking in 1951, and it belongs to the same taste that produced Adair, Blair, Clare and Sinclair as unisex or feminine-leaning surname names. The two-syllable ending in a stressed -air is what makes it work in that register.
Meaningscholars disagree
Wealthy spear, if from Edgar
The surname Adair is generally derived from a Scots form of Edgar, from Old English ēad, wealth or fortune, and gār, a spear — a settled reading for Edgar itself. A separate Irish origin in Ó Dáire, from dáire meaning fruitful or an oak grove, is also proposed. Neither is established for all bearers, and the two families are distinct.
How the name formed
- Edgar
- Edzear
- Adair
Related forms: Ó Dáire · Edzear
Pronouncing Adair
uh-DAIR
Two syllables, stress on the second, rhyming with air. Some American speakers say AD-air with the weight at the front, and both are heard.
Nicknames for Adair
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
- 1916
- Most girls named
- 201331 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2391reached in 1951
- Change vs 2023
- +4.5%23 in 2025, from 22
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.
Adair in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Dáire in Irish — related form
- Edzear in Scots — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: North Carolina.
Adairs among us
people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was named Adair
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 Maxyne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Adair's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maxyne climbed just as high around 1922, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maxyne's path sketches the road Adair is walking now.
Adair 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
Adair beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adair in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Addie works as a warm short form.
- Five letters and two syllables keep it compact.
- It has a genuine Scottish and Ulster history.
- It is used for both sexes and reads as unisex.
- The stress placement varies between speakers.
- The two possible origins are unrelated to each other.
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What they receive
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Adair
Feminine · #5410 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Adairs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Adair in 2025?
- Adair ranks #5410 among US girl names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adair?
- About 1 in every 69,881 US girls born in 2025 was named Adair — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adair with classmates?
- Adair will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adair
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aina#5410 · Sherry#5410 · Kathia#5410 · Taj#5410 · Analicia#5410 · Divya#5410 · Halimah#5410 · Leo#5410
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adair? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adair and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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