Arcadia
Feminine · “the region of Arcadia”
Arcadia is a real place and an imaginary one at the same time. It is a mountainous region of the central Peloponnese, poor and remote; Greek and Roman poets turned it into the pastoral ideal, a landscape of shepherds and eternal summer that never existed anywhere. Both meanings are in the name. Its American peak is 1932.
How old is the name Arcadia?
Arcadia first appears in US birth records in 1919 — 106 years ago. The typical Arcadia alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 600 people named Arcadia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arcadia most popular?
Arcadia peaked in 1932, reaching #3568 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 2,349 places below that high. See the whole 1932 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From arktos to Arcadia
The story of Arcadia
The real Arcadia was among the least fertile parts of Greece and its people had a reputation for rustic simplicity. Hellenistic poets, writing in cities, made that simplicity into an ideal, and Virgil's Eclogues fixed the convention: Arcadia became the standard setting for pastoral poetry for two thousand years. Renaissance writers took it up, Sidney and Sannazaro wrote long works named for it, and Poussin painted shepherds finding a tomb there. The name became a place name in America — Arcadia, California, and a dozen others — and a given name in small numbers, peaking in the 1930s.
Meaningscholars disagree
the region of Arcadia; by extension, an ideal pastoral place
The Greek region takes its name from Arkas, a mythical ancestor whose own name is connected to arktos, 'bear' — his mother, in the story, was Callisto, turned into a bear. That derivation is traditional and not fully secure. What is certain is the second layer: from Theocritus and Virgil onwards Arcadia became the literary name for an idealized rural world, and the Latin phrase et in Arcadia ego, used on tombs and in paintings, made it a byword for a lost paradise.
How the name formed
- arktos
- Arkadia
- Arcadia
Related forms: Arkadia · Arcadia · Arcadia · Arkadiya
Pronouncing Arcadia
ar-KAY-dee-uh
Four syllables, stress on the second. Spanish and Italian say ar-KAH-dee-ah with a fuller middle vowel. There is no serious ambiguity in English.
Nicknames for Arcadia
High
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
- 1919
- Most girls named
- 201828 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3568reached in 1932
- Change vs 2024
- +11.1%20 in 2025, from 18
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.
Arcadia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Arkadia in Greek — same name
- Arcadia in Spanish — same name
- Arcadia in Italian — same name
- Arkadiya in Russian — related form
Arcadias among us
people named Arcadia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Arcadia
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 Madia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Arcadia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Madia climbed just as high around 1916, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Madia's path sketches the road Arcadia is walking now.
Arcadia 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
Arcadia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arcadia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries two thousand years of literary association in four syllables.
- Cadi and Dia are both usable short forms with a modern character.
- The place is real and can be pointed to on a map.
- Four syllables is long for everyday use, so a short form is effectively required.
- It reads as a place name first to many people.
- The connection to the bear is traditional rather than demonstrated.
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What they receive
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Arcadia
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arcadias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Arcadia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Arcadia in 2025?
- Arcadia ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arcadia?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Arcadia — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arcadia with classmates?
- Arcadia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arcadia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arcadia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Arcadia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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