Adarius
Masculine · “Holding firm the good”
Adarius is Darius with a vowel in front, and the vowel is doing real work: A- as an opening prefix was one of the productive American naming elements of the 1980s and 1990s, giving Adarius, Amarion, Antwan and Ajani. The name underneath is Persian and royal.
How old is the name Adarius?
Adarius first appears in US birth records in 1981 — 44 years ago. The typical Adarius alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,300 people named Adarius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adarius most popular?
Adarius peaked in 1999, reaching #1624 nationally. Today it ranks #5399, 3,775 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Where it comes from
From Dārayavauš to Adarius
Our story of Adarius
Prefixes come in generations in American naming and each has a decade. La- goes first, from the 1940s. De- and Ja- follow in the 1960s and 1970s. Ta-, Sha- and Da- crowd in through the 1980s. And A- arrives late, in the 1980s and 1990s, at a point when the system was already mature and the good second elements had mostly been used. What A- offered was a way to reuse them: take a name that was already popular, put a vowel in front, and you have something new that carries all the familiarity of the original. Darius was in the American top three hundred in those years, and Adarius is Darius with the A. Its 1999 peak sits at the end of the prefix era, and the whole system thinned out shortly after.
Meaningscholars disagree
Holding firm the good, if from Darius
Darius is the Greek rendering of Old Persian Dārayavauš, generally read as holding firm the good or he who holds firmly to the good — a settled reading for Darius itself. The A- prefix is an American naming element with no documented meaning. Whether Adarius was formed on Darius or independently on the -arius rhyme family that includes Demarius and Tavarius cannot be determined.
How the name formed
- Dārayavauš
- Darius
- Adarius
Related forms: Dārayavauš · Δαρεῖος
Pronouncing Adarius
uh-DARE-ee-us
Four syllables, stress on the second. Some families say ah-DAR-yus with three, compressing the ending, and both are used.
Nicknames for Adarius
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
- 1981
- Most boys named
- 200770 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1624reached in 1999
- Change vs 2024
- +13.3%17 in 2025, from 15
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.
Adarius in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dārayavauš in Old Persian — related form
- Δαρεῖος in Greek — related form
Adariuss among us
people named Adarius are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 100,475 born in 2025 was named Adarius
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 Leeman test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Adarius's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Leeman climbed just as high around 1919, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Leeman's path sketches the road Adarius is walking now.
Adarius 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
Adarius beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adarius in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Darius is available as a complete short form with a settled meaning.
- It is easy to say and spells itself from the sound.
- It reads immediately as a name.
- Four syllables is long for American paperwork.
- Adarius, Adarrius and Adaryus are all in the records.
- The A- prefix dates it closely to the 1990s.
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What they receive
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Adarius
Masculine · #5399 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Adariuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Adarius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Adarius in 2025?
- Adarius ranks #5399 among US boy names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adarius?
- About 1 in every 100,475 US boys born in 2025 was named Adarius — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adarius with classmates?
- Adarius will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adarius
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Frazier#5399 · Franz#5399 · Demetrio#5399 · Rolan#5399 · Rayvon#5399 · Riddick#5399 · Laramie#5399 · Soloman#5399
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adarius? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adarius and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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