Cord
Masculine · “bold counsel”
Cord is the German short form of Konrad, and the name means bold counsel — advice given without flinching.
How old is the name Cord?
Cord first appears in US birth records in 1920 — 105 years ago. The typical Cord alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 1,800 people named Cord are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cord most popular?
Cord peaked in 1990, reaching #1058 nationally. Today it ranks #4707, 3,649 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Cord
Ours, offered as ours. Rad, counsel, is one of the busiest elements in Germanic naming and it says something about what those societies valued: Conrad is bold counsel, Alfred is elf counsel, Ethelred is noble counsel, and the king remembered as Ethelred the Unready was actually Ethelred the ill-counselled, which is a pun on his name that has been mistranslated for a thousand years.
Meaning
bold counsel
From Germanic kuoni, bold or brave, and rad, counsel or advice; the same second element ends Conrad, Baldur-style names and the English -red of Alfred and Ethelred. Cord is the northern German clipped form.
Pronouncing Cord
KORD
One syllable. German gives the same shape.
Nicknames for Cord
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
- 1920
- Most boys named
- 199194 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1058reached in 1990
- Change vs 2024
- +10.5%21 in 2025, from 19
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.
Cord in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cord in German — same name
- Konrad in German — related form
- Conrad in English — related form
Cords among us
people named Cord are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was named Cord
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cord
- #4707
- Cord on the 2025 chart
- #900
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cord went to 21 boys in 2025, but Kord is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 28, which makes it the 900th most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,807 places above the chart.
- Cord21
- Kord7
About 1 boy in 61,003 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 81,337 for Cord itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ramond test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cord's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ramond climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ramond's path sketches the road Cord is walking now.
Cord 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
Cord beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cord in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning with both elements clearly attested.
- Four letters and one syllable — as short as a name gets.
- Conrad stands behind it as a fuller formal option.
- It is an ordinary English noun for a length of rope.
- It reads as a nickname, which may matter on a formal document.
- A one-syllable name gives no room for a nickname.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Cord
Masculine · #4707 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cords are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Cord are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cord?
- Cord is the most-used spelling in US records — 21 of the 28 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kord.
- How popular is the name Cord in 2025?
- Cord ranks #4707 among US boy names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cord?
- About 1 in every 81,337 US boys born in 2025 was named Cord — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cord with classmates?
- Cord will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cord
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ole#4707 · Shelton#4707 · Constantino#4707 · Adel#4707 · Zalman#4707 · Montez#4707 · Kalani#4707 · Homer#4707
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cord? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cord 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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