Cadance
Feminine · “a falling”
Cadance is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 946 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
The Latin verb cadere means to fall, and English is built out of it. A cascade falls. A cadaver has fallen. Decay is falling away, an accident is something that falls out, a chance is how the dice fall, and a cadence is a phrase falling to rest.
How old is the name Cadance?
Cadance first appears in US birth records in 2002 — 23 years ago. The typical Cadance alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 900 people named Cadance are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cadance most popular?
Cadance peaked in 2004, reaching #1769 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 10,163 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Where it comes from
From cadere to Cadance
The story of Cadance
Cadere is one of the busiest Latin verbs in English and almost nobody notices, because its descendants arrived at different times by different routes and none of them looks like the others. Occasion is a falling-toward. Incident is a falling-in. Coincide is falling together. Decadence is falling away, and so is decay. Chance came through French cheance, the way the dice fall. The word cadence itself entered English in the fourteenth century for the fall of a voice and has since been applied to marching, to cycling and to speech. The -ance spelling is newer than all of it: American parents wrote the ending the way Constance and Vance are written, which makes the word slightly less visible in the name.
Meaning
a falling; the fall of a rhythm
From Latin cadere, to fall, through Italian cadenza and French cadence. The musical sense is the oldest in English: the fall of the voice at the end of a phrase, and then the closing chords that produce it. The a in this spelling is an American respelling and does not change the word.
How the name formed
- cadere
- cadenza
- cadence
- Cadance
Related forms: Cadenza
Pronouncing Cadance
KAY-dunce
Two syllables, stress on the first, exactly as the ordinary word is said. The a in the second syllable is reduced to almost nothing, which is why the respelling changes nothing audible.
Nicknames for Cadance
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
- 2002
- Most girls named
- 2004108 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1769reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%7 in 2025, 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.
Cadance in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cadenza in Italian — related form
Cadances among us
people named Cadance are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Cadance
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 Celinda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cadance's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Celinda climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Celinda's path sketches the road Cadance is walking now.
Cadance 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
Cadance beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cadance in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Latin meaning with a whole shelf of English words to point at.
- Three short forms, one of which serves either child.
- Two syllables that everyone can say correctly on first sight.
- Cadence is the standard spelling and this one will be corrected constantly.
- It is an ordinary English word about rhythm, so the association is fixed.
- The very few boys given this spelling will be read as girls on paper.
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What they receive
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Cadance
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cadances are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Cadance are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cadance in 2025?
- Cadance ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cadance?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Cadance — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cadance with classmates?
- Cadance will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cadance
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cadance? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cadance and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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