Adda
Feminine · “noble”
Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm intended for a machine. Byron's daughter, working on Babbage's unbuilt Analytical Engine in 1843, produced a note describing how it could compute Bernoulli numbers, and it is generally taken as the first computer program.
How old is the name Adda?
Adda was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Adda alive today was born around 1913, making them about 112 years old. About 100 people named Adda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adda most popular?
Adda peaked in 1881, reaching #374 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 6,464 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From adal to Adda
The story of Adda
Augusta Ada Byron, born 1815, was raised deliberately on mathematics by a mother determined to keep her from her father's poetry. Her translation of an Italian account of Babbage's Analytical Engine, with her own notes appended at three times the length of the original, describes the machine's capacity to operate on symbols rather than numbers and includes the algorithm she is remembered for. She died at thirty-six. The name Ada was in ordinary Victorian use independently, and its American peak is 1880; Adda with the doubled d is a variant of the same period, peaking in 1881, and the doubling guarantees the short first vowel.
Meaningscholars disagree
noble, or adornment
Two routes. The Germanic element adal, noble, gives Ada as a short form of Adelaide, Adelheid and similar names; the same element is behind Alice and the German edel. Separately, Hebrew Adah, an adornment or ornament, appears in Genesis as a wife of Lamech and of Esau. The doubled d of this spelling is an English orthographic device.
How the name formed
- adal
- Adelheid
- Ada
- Adda
Related forms: Ada · Adah · Ada · Ada
Pronouncing Adda
AD-uh
Two syllables with the stress on the first and a short a. The doubled d guarantees that vowel; the single-d Ada is often said AY-duh instead.
Nicknames for Adda
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 188827 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #374reached in 1881
- Change vs 2023
- +166.7%16 in 2025, from 6
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.
Adda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ada in English — spelling variant
- Adah in Hebrew — related form
- Ada in German — same name
- Ada in Italian — same name
Addas among us
people named Adda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Adda
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Adda
- #6838
- Adda on the 2025 chart
- #216
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Adda went to 16 girls in 2025, but Ada and Adah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 1,527, which makes it the 216th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,622 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,053 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Adda itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Adda 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
Adda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Germanic meaning and a genuinely remarkable Victorian namesake.
- The doubled d removes the ambiguity about the first vowel that Ada carries.
- Four letters and impossible to misspell once heard.
- Ada is the standard spelling and will be written for you.
- The single-d form is usually said with a long a, so the two sound different.
- It reads as a nineteenth-century name, because that is its period.
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Adda
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Addas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Adda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Adda?
- Adda is one of 3 recorded spellings. Ada is the more common one — 1,401 births in 2025 against 16 for Adda.
- How popular is the name Adda in 2025?
- Adda ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adda?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Adda — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adda with classmates?
- Adda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Nicol#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adda? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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