Alferd
Masculine · “elf counsel”
Alferd is one of the oldest names in England wearing an American spelling. The name behind it belonged to the only English king anybody bothered to call great, and it has the rare distinction of having survived the Norman Conquest, which killed off most of the Old English name stock within two generations.
How old is the name Alferd?
Alferd first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Alferd alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 300 people named Alferd are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alferd most popular?
Alferd peaked in 1899, reaching #928 nationally. See the whole 1899 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Old English ælf and ræd: counsel from the elves to Alferd
The story of Alferd
The king took the collapse of learning personally. Writing at the end of the ninth century, Alfred complained that there had been a time when men came to England for instruction and now there was hardly anyone south of the Thames who could translate a letter from Latin, and he set about fixing it: books he judged most necessary for men to know were to be turned into English, and he worked on several of the translations himself, in the middle of a reign spent fighting. His most famous surviving object makes the same point. The Alfred Jewel, ploughed up in a Somerset field in 1693, is a piece of gold and enamel made to sit on the end of a pointer for following lines of text, and around its edge, in Old English, it says that Alfred ordered it made. A reading aid, commissioned by a king, inscribed with his name.
Meaning
elf counsel
The Old English is Ælfræd: ælf, an elf, and ræd, counsel or advice. Elves in that period were not small and not charming — they were powerful, ambiguous and worth having on your side — so the name means something closer to advised by supernatural wisdom than to anything whimsical. The derivation is agreed. This spelling exchanges two letters in the middle and changes nothing else; the name it carries is the same one.
How the name formed
- Old English ælf and ræd: counsel from the elves
- The king of Wessex carries it and the name survives the Conquest
- 1693: the Alfred Jewel is found in a Somerset field
- Victorian medievalism revives the name across England and America
- American records carry the spelling Alferd alongside the standard one
Related forms: Alfred · Alfredo · Alfredo · Alfred
Pronouncing Alferd
AL-fred
Two syllables with the stress on the first. The exchanged letters make no audible difference: this spelling and the standard one are said identically, and no one hearing the name would know which version is written down.
Nicknames for Alferd
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
- 1891
- Most boys named
- 193030 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #928reached in 1899
- Change vs 1974
- −25.0%6 in 1976, 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.
Alferd in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alfred in English — spelling variant
- Alfredo in Italian — related form
- Alfredo in Spanish — related form
- Alfred in French — same name
Alferds among us
people named Alferd are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Alferd sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One of the oldest continuously used names in English, with a documented royal bearer
- Three established short forms, one of which is currently fashionable
- Plain, sturdy and impossible to mispronounce
- The standard spelling is overwhelmingly commoner, so this one will be corrected everywhere and permanently.
- The rearranged letters look like a transcription error to anyone who does not know the name is written this way on purpose.
- The full name still reads as belonging to an older generation, though the short forms do not.
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Alferd
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Alferds are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Alferd are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Alferd in 2025?
- Alferd is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Alferd with classmates?
- Alferd will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anthony#46 · Andrew#73 · Alexander#30 · Aaron#80 · Adam#101 · Arthur#87 · Albert#614 · Austin#113
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alferd? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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