Bedford
Masculine · “Beda's ford”
Bedford is a crossing place named after somebody nobody else wrote down. A man called Beda had a ford on the Great Ouse, the settlement took his name, the settlement became a town and then a county, and the man himself left no other trace anywhere in the record.
How old is the name Bedford?
Bedford was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Bedford alive today was born around 1929, making them about 96 years old. About 300 people named Bedford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bedford most popular?
Bedford peaked in 1887, reaching #679 nationally. See the whole 1887 chart.
Where it comes from
From Bedanford to Bedford
The story of Bedford
The town's most consequential resident spent twelve years in its jail. John Bunyan was a tinker who preached without a license, refused to stop when the law changed, and was imprisoned for it repeatedly; he made shoelaces to support his family from inside and wrote. The book he began there follows a man with a burden on his back walking from his own town to a distant city, meeting Obstinate, Pliable, Mr Worldly Wiseman and Giant Despair on the way, and it became the most widely read book in English after the Bible for two centuries, translated into hundreds of languages and carried by missionaries everywhere. It was written by a man with no education to speak of, in a county jail, in the plainest English anybody had used.
Meaning
Beda's ford
Old English personal name plus ford, a shallow crossing. Hundreds of English place names are built this way, joining a landowner's name to a feature, and in most cases the person is otherwise entirely unknown; the place is the only evidence they existed. So the meaning of the name is a river crossing belonging to a man whose whole surviving biography is that he owned it.
How the name formed
- Bedanford
- Bedford
Pronouncing Bedford
BED-furd
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced almost to nothing in ordinary speech, which is true of every English place name ending in -ford and is why so many of them are misspelled from dictation.
Nicknames for Bedford
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 boys named
- 192937 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #679reached in 1887
- Change vs 1991
- 0.0%5 in 2022, 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.
Bedfords among us
people named Bedford 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
Bedford 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
- The meaning is concrete and can be given to a child in three words.
- Ford is waiting inside it as a short, current surname-name.
- It is spelled exactly as it is said, once the unstressed ending is allowed for.
- It reads as a surname and will be entered in the wrong field on forms.
- One Confederate general and Klan leader carried this as a middle name, and Americans who know the history will hear it.
- The first syllable is an ordinary English word, and children find that quickly.
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What they receive
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Bedford
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Bedfords 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 Bedford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bedford in 2025?
- Bedford is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Bedford with classmates?
- Bedford will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Brian#339 · Benjamin#11 · Brandon#261 · Bryan#336 · Bruce#536 · Billy#1068 · Bobby#1097 · Bradley#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bedford? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bedford and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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