Addam
Masculine · “human”
Adam is made of the word for the ground he is made from. Hebrew adam is a human being and adamah is the earth, and the text puts them side by side deliberately. English has the same pun entirely by accident: human and humus both come from the Latin for soil.
How old is the name Addam?
Addam first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Addam alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 700 people named Addam are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Addam most popular?
Addam peaked in 1984, reaching #1723 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 10,285 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From adamah to Addam
The story of Addam
The Hebrew pun is one of the tidiest in the book: the human is formed from the humus, and the two words sit one letter apart. Latin arrived at the same joke independently. Humus is soil, and humanus is what belongs to it, so human and humble both descend from the ground — humble literally means low to the earth. The name has been in continuous use since, and it is one of a very small number that mean simply person. The doubled d in this spelling is an American choice and has no source; it shortens nothing and lengthens nothing, since the vowel before it was already short.
Meaning
human, from the ground
Hebrew adam, a human being or humankind, closely tied to adamah, ground or earth. Genesis makes the connection explicit. It is a common noun before it is a name — for the first chapters the word means the human rather than a particular man.
How the name formed
- adamah
- adam
- Adam
- Addam
Related forms: Adam · Adam · Adam · Adam
Pronouncing Addam
AD-um
Two syllables, stress on the first. The doubled d changes nothing you can hear. Polish and French say the same letters with the weight at the end, a-DAM.
Nicknames for Addam
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
- 1965
- Most boys named
- 198433 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1723reached in 1984
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%5 in 2025, from 5
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.
Addam in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Adam in Hebrew — same name
- Adam in Arabic — same name
- Adam in Polish — same name
- Adam in French — same name
Addams among us
people named Addam are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Addam
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Addam
- #12008
- Addam on the 2025 chart
- #104
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Addam went to 5 boys in 2025, but Adam is the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 3,515, which makes it the 104th most-given boys’ name of the year — 11,904 places above the chart.
- Adam3,501
- Addam5
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 486 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 341,615 for Addam 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
The Bufford test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Addam's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bufford climbed just as high around 1936, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bufford's path sketches the road Addam is walking now.
Addam 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
Addam beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Addam in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Hebrew meaning that the source text explains as it goes.
- Spelled the same in Hebrew, Arabic, English, French and Polish.
- Two syllables and one of the shortest records of ambiguity of any name.
- Adam is overwhelmingly the standard spelling and this one will be corrected constantly.
- The extra d adds a letter and no sound at all.
- The name means human being, which is either the best possible meaning or no meaning at all.
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Addam
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Addams are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Addam are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Addam?
- Addam is one of 2 recorded spellings. Adam is the more common one — 3,501 births in 2025 against 5 for Addam.
- How popular is the name Addam in 2025?
- Addam ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Addam?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Addam — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Addam with classmates?
- Addam will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Addam
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Addam? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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