Cassady
Feminine · “descendant of the curly-haired one”
Cassady is given to both — 1,085 girls and 87 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Neal Cassady drove the car. He was the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road, the man whose letters convinced Kerouac to write the way he did, and he spelled his surname with an a where the Irish original has an i. This name follows his spelling rather than the standard one, which is a small but real distinction between Cassady and Cassidy.
How old is the name Cassady?
Cassady first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Cassady alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 1,100 people named Cassady are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cassady most popular?
Cassady peaked in 1995, reaching #2125 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 12,817 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From cas to Cassady
The story of Cassady
The surname reached America with Irish emigration and moved to the front of the name in the twentieth century, given to daughters in real numbers from the 1980s. What separates this spelling from the standard one is a single vowel, and the likeliest reason for it is a particular man: Cassady with an a was the spelling that appeared on the jacket of one of the most-read American novels of the century and on a good deal that was written about it afterward. The record shows this version from 1977, which fits.
Meaningscholars disagree
descendant of the curly-haired one
From the Irish Ó Caiside, built on a personal name usually derived from cas, meaning curly — a description of hair. The Cassidys of Fermanagh were hereditary physicians to the Maguires, which is documented and rather more interesting than the etymology.
How the name formed
- cas
- Ó Caiside
- Cassidy
- Cassady
Related forms: Ó Caiside
Pronouncing Cassady
KASS-ih-dee
Three syllables, stress on the first. The middle vowel is reduced to almost nothing, which is exactly why it can be written a or i without anyone hearing a difference.
Nicknames for Cassady
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
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 199967 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2125reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- −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.
Cassady in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Caiside in Irish — same name
Cassadys among us
people named Cassady are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Cassady
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 Korinne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cassady's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Korinne climbed just as high around 1978, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Korinne's path sketches the road Cassady is walking now.
Cassady 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
Cassady beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cassady in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Cass and Cassie are both available and belong to different registers.
- It has a documented Irish family behind it who were physicians for generations.
- It works for a child of either sex, and the record shows it doing so.
- It is entirely readable on sight.
- Cassidy is the standard spelling and will be substituted on nearly everything.
- The change is inaudible, so the letters have to be dictated.
- It belongs to a specific stretch of American naming and dates a woman accordingly.
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What they receive
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Cassady
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cassadys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Cassady are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cassady in 2025?
- Cassady ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cassady?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Cassady — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cassady with classmates?
- Cassady will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cassady
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cassady? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cassady and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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