Clyde
Feminine · “the washer”
Clyde is given to boys far more often — 144,994 boys against 3,932 girls since 1880. See Clyde as a boy name
Clyde is a river before it is anything else: the water that runs through Glasgow and out past the shipyards. The name is older than any language now spoken on its banks, and the best guess anyone has is that it belonged to a goddess before it belonged to a river.
How old is the name Clyde?
Clyde was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Clyde alive today was born around 1918, making them about 107 years old. About 500 people named Clyde are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Clyde most popular?
Clyde peaked in 1890, reaching #366 nationally. See the whole 1890 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Clota to Clyde
The story of Clyde
For most of a century the Clyde built ships, and it built them in such numbers that Clydebuilt became a word in its own right, stamped on hulls from Glasgow to Hong Kong as a guarantee. At its height the yards along a few miles of one Scottish river were launching a large share of everything afloat. The name went to America with Scottish emigrants, moved from the river to the surname to the front of the name in the nineteenth century, and became far commoner there than it ever was in Scotland. Almost every American Clyde is named ultimately after twenty miles of water in Lanarkshire.
Meaningscholars disagree
the washer, the cleansing one
The Roman name for the river was Clota, which is generally read as a British goddess-name from a root meaning to wash or cleanse. That is the standard reading, but it rests on a single early form and cannot be proved.
How the name formed
- Clota
- Clyde
Pronouncing Clyde
KLYDE
One syllable, rhyming with side. Said the same in Scotland and America, with no second reading anywhere.
Nicknames for Clyde
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1916116 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #366reached in 1890
- Change vs 1974
- +16.7%7 in 1977, 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.
Clydes among us
people named Clyde are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Clyde sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One syllable, five letters, and no possible mispronunciation.
- It has a real and traceable source: a named river with a documented history.
- It works in front of long surnames, where most one-syllable names get crowded.
- Bonnie and Clyde is the first association for most Americans and shows no sign of fading.
- The spelling is recorded for girls as well as boys, though it reads overwhelmingly as a boy's name.
- It is strongly of the early twentieth century, and a child would be nearly alone with it.
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What they receive
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Clyde
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Clydes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Clyde are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Clyde in 2025?
- Clyde is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Clyde with classmates?
- Clyde will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Clyde? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Clyde and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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