Brady
Masculine · Irish roots · “from the Irish byname brádach”
Brady is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 96,770 boys against 2,138 girls since 1880. See Brady as a girl name
Brady comes from Ó Brádaigh, the name of a family long seated in the old Irish kingdom of Breifne, in what is now County Cavan. It crossed the Atlantic as a surname with Irish emigrants and then did what a certain kind of Irish surname does in America: it stepped forward and became a first name. Two syllables, a bright open vowel, and an ending that lands softly.
How old is the name Brady?
Brady first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Brady alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 92,000 people named Brady are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brady most popular?
Brady peaked in 2007, reaching #93 nationally. Today it ranks #321, 228 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Where it comes from
From brádach (Irish byname) to Brady
The story of Brady
The Ó Brádaigh were a Gaelic family of Breifne, the territory covering modern Cavan and part of Leitrim, and they held land there through the medieval period as one of the region's ruling kindreds. Anglicized as Brady, the name spread widely through Ireland and then, in the nineteenth century, through the Irish emigration to the United States, where it became one of the more common Irish surnames on the continent. Its move into first-name use follows a well-worn American path — the family surname used as a given name, first inside Irish-American families and later far beyond them. That is why it turns up in US records well over a century ago and has never fully left them.
Meaningscholars disagree
from the Irish byname brádach, read either as "spirited" or as "thieving, deceitful"
The surname Ó Brádaigh means "descendant of Brádach," and the byname itself is what scholars disagree about. Irish brádach has been glossed both as "spirited" and, less flatteringly, as "thieving" or "fraudulent" — bynames in medieval Ireland were often given by neighbors rather than chosen. A third reading connects it to bráighe, "throat, chest," giving something like "broad-chested." No one reading has won out.
How the name formed
- brádachIrish byname
- Ó Brádaigh
- Brady
Related forms: Ó Brádaigh · Mac Brádaigh · Bradey
Pronouncing Brady
BRAY-dee
Stress on the first syllable. One pronunciation everywhere in the English-speaking world, and it matches the spelling exactly.
Nicknames for Brady
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
- 1883
- Most boys named
- 20084,815 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #93reached in 2007
- Change vs 2022
- −12.4%1,071 in 2025, from 1,223
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.
Brady in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Brádaigh in Irish — related form
- Mac Brádaigh in Irish — related form
- Bradey in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Michigan.
Bradys among us
people named Brady are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,595 born in 2025 was named Brady
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 Jerome test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brady's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jerome climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jerome's path sketches the road Brady is walking now.
Brady 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 Brady is headed
Brady should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Brady beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brady in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds and read correctly on first sight by nearly any English speaker.
- Two clear syllables with the stress up front — easy to call across a yard, easy for a small child to say.
- A documented Irish family name with an unbroken record stretching back to medieval Breifne.
- Works at every age: it never reads as a nursery name, and it has been on American birth records for well over a century.
- It is strongly attached to one enormously famous American athlete, and for many people that association arrives before anything else. It fades over decades, but expect a comment or two in the early years.
- The Brady Bunch keeps the surname in circulation for anyone who grew up with reruns — a mild, mostly affectionate association rather than a problem.
- One of the competing readings of the old Irish byname is "thieving" rather than "spirited." It is a nickname from a thousand years ago and carries nothing forward, but it is there if anyone goes looking.
- There is no natural short form. A child who wants a nickname will have to be given one rather than finding it inside the name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Brady
Masculine · Irish roots · #321 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bradys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 92,000 people named Brady are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brady in 2025?
- Brady ranks #321 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,071 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brady?
- About 1 in every 1,595 US boys born in 2025 was named Brady — 1,071 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brady with classmates?
- Brady will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brady
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Francisco#322 · Jorge#322 · Casey#320 · Dakota#319 · Cody#318 · Zane#324 · Zyaire#317 · Niko#325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brady? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brady and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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