Bradon
Masculine · “salmon”
Braden means salmon. The Irish surname O Bradain is from bradan, the ordinary word for the fish, and Irish literature takes salmon seriously — the Salmon of Knowledge is the creature that ate the hazelnuts of wisdom and passed them on to whoever tasted it first.
How old is the name Bradon?
Bradon first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Bradon alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 2,000 people named Bradon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bradon most popular?
Bradon peaked in 2000, reaching #1361 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 10,647 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Where it comes from
From bradan to Bradon
The story of Bradon
Salmon do something that still is not fully explained. They hatch in fresh water, go to sea for years, and then return to the exact stream they came from — navigating by the earth's magnetic field over the ocean, and then, in the last stretch, apparently by the smell of the water itself, which they seem to have learned as young fish. The homing accuracy is very high. Irish naming took the fish as a byword for knowledge before anyone knew any of that, and the surname belonged to families in Roscommon and the west. American parents took it as a first name in the 1970s, when Irish surnames became a general resource rather than a family inheritance.
Meaning
salmon
Irish bradan, a salmon, in the surname O Bradain, descendant of Bradan. The reading is standard in Irish surname scholarship. Bradon is one of several American spellings of the name, and the o in the ending is not audible.
How the name formed
- bradan
- O Bradain
- Braden
- Bradon
Related forms: O Bradain
Pronouncing Bradon
BRAY-dun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Braden, Braeden, Bradon and Braedon are said identically; the second vowel is reduced and can be spelled any way.
Nicknames for Bradon
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 2005104 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1361reached in 2000
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
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.
Bradon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- O Bradain in Irish — related form
Bradons among us
people named Bradon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Bradon
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 Leron test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bradon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Leron climbed just as high around 1975, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Leron's path sketches the road Bradon is walking now.
Bradon 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
Bradon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bradon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Irish meaning naming a real and well-known fish.
- Brad works as a short form and is a full name of its own.
- Two syllables that everyone reads correctly on sight.
- Braden and Braeden are both commoner and at least five spellings compete.
- It rhymes with a large cohort of names from the same decades and will be heard as one of them.
- The o changes nothing audible, so its cost is paid for appearance.
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Bradon
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bradons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Bradon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bradon in 2025?
- Bradon ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bradon?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Bradon — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bradon with classmates?
- Bradon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bradon
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 Bradon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bradon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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