Adam
Feminine · “Hebrew adam”
Adam is given to boys far more often — 580,378 boys against 2,075 girls since 1880. See Adam as a boy name
Adam is not a name for most of Genesis. It is the ordinary Hebrew word for a human being, and the text uses it with the definite article, the adam, until well into the story. God forms the adam from the adamah, the ground, so the creature is named after its material.
How old is the name Adam?
Adam first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Adam alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 2,000 people named Adam are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adam most popular?
Adam peaked in 1984, reaching #1007 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 8,450 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Where it comes from
From adamah to Adam
The story of Adam
The Hebrew of Genesis 2 and 3 says ha-adam, the human, not Adam, and the transition to a personal name is gradual and disputed in exactly which verse it happens. The wordplay is explicit: the adam is formed from the adamah, so the relationship in English would be something like a groundling from the ground, or a human from the humus, which is a real cognate pair in Latin. The same passage names the woman ishshah because she was taken from ish, which works in Hebrew and not in English, and the older translations reached for woman from man to keep it. What the text is doing throughout is telling you what things are made of by what they are called, and translations lose it every time because English nouns do not cooperate.
Meaning
Hebrew adam, earth or human
Adam is Hebrew for a human being, connected in Genesis 2:7 to adamah, the ground or soil, and probably also to adom, red, from the color of the earth. For much of the opening chapters the word appears with the definite article and functions as a common noun rather than a name. The female entries in the American record are few. The female peak is 1984.
How the name formed
- adamah
- adam
- Adam
Related forms: Adam · Adam · Adam
Pronouncing Adam
AD-um
Two syllables, stress on the first. Hebrew says ah-DAHM with the stress on the second. Most European languages keep the spelling unchanged.
Nicknames for Adam
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
- 1913
- Most girls named
- 1984142 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1007reached in 1984
- Change vs 2024
- +25.0%10 in 2025, from 8
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.
Adam in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Adam in Hebrew — same name
- Adam in Arabic — same name
- Adam in Polish — same name
Adams among us
people named Adam are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Adam
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 Everlena test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Adam's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Everlena climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Everlena's path sketches the road Adam is walking now.
Adam 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
Adam beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adam in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The name is spelled identically in most languages.
- It has an unbroken history of three thousand years.
- Two syllables with a firm first-syllable stress.
- It is read as a man's name essentially everywhere.
- The female records are few and some are certainly clerical.
- Adama and Adamina are the historical female forms.
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What they receive
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Adam
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Adams are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Adam are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Adam in 2025?
- Adam ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adam?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Adam — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adam with classmates?
- Adam will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adam
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adam? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adam and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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