Adair
Masculine · “wealthy spear”
Adair is given to both — 1,797 boys and 1,420 girls since 1880. See Adair as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Adair is a Scottish form of Edgar — wealthy spear, in Old English — reshaped by Gaelic speech until it looked like a different name.
How old is the name Adair?
Adair first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Adair alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 1,700 people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adair most popular?
Adair peaked in 2007, reaching #1562 nationally. Today it ranks #2145, 583 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ead gar to Adair
The story of Adair
The Adairs of Galloway are said to descend from an Edgar whose name Gaelic speech ground into Adair over generations. The surname crossed to Ulster and then America. It entered given-name use for both sexes and appears in the registers in current use.
Meaningscholars disagree
wealthy spear
Generally traced to Edgar, from the Old English ead, 'wealth', and gar, 'spear', through a Scottish family who reshaped it as Adair. An alternative derives it from a Gaelic ath dare, 'oak ford'. The Edgar route is the commoner account and neither is fully settled.
How the name formed
- ead gar
- Edgar
- Adair
Related forms: Adair · Edgar · Adaire
Pronouncing Adair
uh-DAIR
Two syllables, stress on the second. Said identically in every English accent.
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 200993 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1562reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- +13.6%67 in 2025, from 59
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
- Adair in Scottish — same name
- Edgar in English — related form
- Adaire in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Georgia.
Adairs among us
people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 25,494 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 Toan 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: Toan climbed just as high around 1983, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Toan'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
Where Adair is headed
Adair looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 34% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Adair beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adair in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- That Edgar could grind into Adair is a first-rate piece of name history.
- The wealthy-spear meaning is vivid where the Edgar route holds.
- The end stress gives it a strong rhythm against a front-stressed surname.
- The origin is genuinely unsettled between two routes.
- It reads unmistakably as a surname.
- It is used for both sexes in America.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Adair to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Adair? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Adair
Masculine · #2145 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 1,700 people named Adair are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Adair in 2025?
- Adair ranks #2145 among US boy names in 2025, with 67 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adair?
- About 1 in every 25,494 US boys born in 2025 was named Adair — 67 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.
Shayan#2145 · Wendell#2145 · Hosea#2145 · Banner#2145 · Musab#2145 · Alastair#2145 · Jahsir#2145 · Baylen#2145
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adair? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adair and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle