Braden
Masculine · “from Irish bradán”
Braden is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 46,235 boys against 277 girls since 1880.
Braden comes into English from an Irish surname, Ó Bradáin, built on the word for salmon — a fish that carries real weight in Irish storytelling, where the Salmon of Knowledge gives up its wisdom to whoever tastes it first. In the mouth it is two clean beats, BRAY-den, the same shape that made Aiden and Hayden household sounds. It was on American records well before that whole family of names became a group.
How old is the name Braden?
Braden first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Braden alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 45,500 people named Braden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Braden most popular?
Braden peaked in 2005, reaching #133 nationally. Today it ranks #1152, 1,019 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Bradán to Braden
The story of Braden
Braden began as a family name rather than a first name. In Ireland, Ó Bradáin identified the descendants of a man called Bradán — the ordinary Irish word for salmon, a fish tied in Irish legend to the Salmon of Knowledge, eaten by the young Fionn mac Cumhaill. Anglicization flattened the surname into Braden, Bradan and Bradon, and Irish emigration carried those spellings into North America, where the surname-as-first-name habit turned it into a boy's given name. A parallel English surname, from place names meaning broad valley, fed the same spelling from another direction.
Meaningscholars disagree
from Irish bradán, "salmon" — or from an English place name meaning "broad valley"
The most commonly cited source is the Irish surname Ó Bradáin, "descendant of Bradán", from bradán, "salmon". A separate English line runs through place and surname forms such as Bradden and Braydon, generally read as "broad valley" or "broad hill" from Old English brad. Both roads are real; a given Braden today may sit on either.
How the name formed
- Bradán
- Ó Bradáin
- Braden
Related forms: Bradán · Brayden · Braeden · Braiden · Bradyn
Pronouncing Braden
BRAY-den
Stress on the first syllable; the second is a light -den, close to the ending of Aiden and Hayden. Almost never mispronounced by English speakers.
Nicknames for Braden
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
- 1916
- Most boys named
- 20053,046 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #133reached in 2005
- Change vs 2023
- −2.1%183 in 2025, from 187
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.
Braden in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bradán in Irish — related form
- Brayden in English — spelling variant
- Braeden in English — spelling variant
- Braiden in English — spelling variant
- Bradyn in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Bradens among us
people named Braden are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 9,334 born in 2025 was named Braden
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 Tyrone test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Braden's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tyrone climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tyrone's path sketches the road Braden is walking now.
Braden 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
Where Braden is headed
Braden is easing off slowly — about 29% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Braden beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Braden in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on sight for English speakers — two syllables, stress in the obvious place, no silent letters.
- Sits in a sound family everyone already knows, so it needs no explanation while remaining uncommon in any one classroom.
- A documented Irish surname origin, useful for families wanting an Irish thread without an unfamiliar spelling.
- Short enough to need no nickname, with Brade and Bray available if one is wanted.
- Brayden is the spelling many people default to, so expect to correct it fairly often — at coffee counters, on forms, in email address lines.
- The -aden and -ayden sound cluster is closely tied to a particular stretch of recent decades, so the name may read as belonging to that cohort rather than as an old classic.
- The name is stepping back from its high point rather than rising, which means fewer duplicates in a class but also a sound some ears will place in a specific era.
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What they receive
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Braden
Masculine · #1152 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bradens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 45,500 people named Braden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Braden in 2025?
- Braden ranks #1152 among US boy names in 2025, with 183 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Braden?
- About 1 in every 9,334 US boys born in 2025 was named Braden — 183 in all.
- Will my child share the name Braden with classmates?
- Braden will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Braden
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vaughn#1152 · Dangelo#1154 · Kacey#1154 · Osman#1156 · Gianluca#1156 · Yasir#1156 · Kalel#1159 · Kross#1145
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Braden? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Braden and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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