Brayden
Masculine · “from a valley place name”
Brayden is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 136,548 boys against 1,058 girls since 1880. See Brayden as a girl name
Brayden was in the American record for thirty years before anybody noticed it. It appears in small numbers around 1970, sits almost flat for a generation, and then climbs to the top of the charts in the 2000s on the back of a rhyme that swept up half a dozen names at once — one of the slowest fuses and one of the fastest explosions in the whole record.
How old is the name Brayden?
Brayden first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Brayden alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 135,000 people named Brayden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brayden most popular?
Brayden peaked in 2011, reaching #36 nationally. Today it ranks #229, 193 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Brayden appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Old English denu, a wooded valley, closes English place names to Brayden
The story of Brayden
The rise is the interesting part. A name that has been available for decades without moving suddenly becomes the fashion, not on its own merits but because it rhymes with something that is already fashionable. Once a shape catches, everything that fits the shape gets pulled along — the ending does the work and the front becomes almost interchangeable. That is how a set of unrelated names, some Irish, some English, some invented, ended up occupying a large slice of a decade's boys' charts together. The wave lifted this one from obscurity to the top and has been letting it down again ever since.
Meaningscholars disagree
from a valley place name, or an Irish surname
The ending is Old English: a den or dene is a valley, usually a wooded one with a stream in it, and it closes a great many English place names and the surnames taken from them. Hayden is a hay valley; Camden and Marsden are others of the same kind. An Irish route is also available, from a surname built on a word for a salmon. Which of the two a modern American Brayden descends from is not usually recoverable, and for most families the answer is neither: the name was chosen for its sound.
How the name formed
- Old English denu, a wooded valley, closes English place names
- an Irish surname supplies a second possible route
- Brayden appears in the American record around 1970
- sits almost flat for a generation
- climbs to the top of the charts in the 2000s
Related forms: Braden · Braydon · Bradan
Pronouncing Brayden
BRAY-dun
Two syllables, stress at the front, and a second syllable with no identifiable vowel — which is why the record carries it spelled with an e, an o and an i in that position.
Nicknames for Brayden
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
- 20109,122 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #36reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- −19.7%1,545 in 2025, from 1,923
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.
Brayden in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Braden in English — spelling variant
- Braydon in English — spelling variant
- Bradan in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Braydens among us
people named Brayden are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,106 born in 2025 was named Brayden
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 Travis test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brayden's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Travis climbed just as high around 1979, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Travis's path sketches the road Brayden is walking now.
Brayden is coming down from a big peak (#36 in 2011). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Brayden is headed
Brayden is easing off slowly — about 23% 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.
Brayden beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brayden in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is completely readable at sight and nobody ever needs help with it.
- It works for a child of either sex, though the record leans heavily one way.
- Brady is available as a short form and is a complete name in its own right.
- It is one of the most precisely dated names of its decade and will place him immediately.
- Braden and Braydon are both common and the spelling will need saying every time.
- He will share the sound, if not the spelling, with a great many boys of his own age.
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What they receive
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Brayden
Masculine · #229 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Braydens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 135,000 people named Brayden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brayden in 2025?
- Brayden ranks #229 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,545 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brayden?
- About 1 in every 1,106 US boys born in 2025 was named Brayden — 1,545 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brayden with classmates?
- Brayden will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brayden
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Simon#230 · Grant#228 · Abel#231 · Callahan#227 · Kairo#226 · Alex#232 · Cohen#225 · Justin#233
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brayden? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brayden and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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