Gilford
Masculine · “Golden ford”
Guildford is not named after a guild. It is a ford where the sand is golden, and the first element is the color rather than the trade; the spelling with a d in the middle is a later confusion that has now been standard for so long that the correction sounds like the invention.
How old is the name Gilford?
Gilford first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Gilford alive today was born around 1937, making them about 88 years old. About 400 people named Gilford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gilford most popular?
Gilford peaked in 1887, reaching #921 nationally. See the whole 1887 chart.
Where it comes from
From Guldeford to Gilford
The story of Gilford
The American surname passed through a battlefield. At Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, near the end of the revolutionary war, a British force under Cornwallis attacked an American army twice its size, drove it from the field, and won; and lost a quarter of its own strength doing it, which it could not replace. A member of parliament said afterwards that another such victory would ruin the British army. Cornwallis marched to the coast, then to Virginia, and surrendered at Yorktown seven months later. The county and the courthouse were named after a British nobleman whose title came from the Surrey town, so an English river crossing gave its name to the fight that effectively ended British America.
Meaningscholars disagree
Golden ford
The likeliest reading joins the Old English word for gold or golden to ford, describing the yellow sand of the crossing on the river Wey. A competing suggestion involves marigolds. What is agreed is that no guild is involved: the d is not original, and the association with craft guilds is a folk explanation attached later.
How the name formed
- Guldeford
- Guildford
- Gilford
Pronouncing Gilford
GIL-furd
Two syllables with the stress at the front and a reduced second. The g is hard, as it is before an i in words English inherited from Old English rather than from French; the soft-g rule applies to the borrowed layer only.
Nicknames for Gilford
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
- 1884
- Most boys named
- 192240 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #921reached in 1887
- Change vs 1982
- −37.5%5 in 1984, from 8
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.
Gilfords among us
people named Gilford 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
Gilford 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
- Short, firm and easy to say, with a documented English origin.
- Gil and Ford are two short forms with nothing in common and both are usable.
- The spelling without the u is closer to how the name is actually said.
- Guilford and Guildford are both commoner spellings and will be written instead.
- It reads as a surname and will be entered in the wrong field on forms.
- The name is firmly dated to the nineteenth century in American records.
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Gilford
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Gilfords are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Gilford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gilford in 2025?
- Gilford is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Gilford with classmates?
- Gilford will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
George#126 · Gary#1073 · Gregory#593 · Gerald#1204 · Gabriel#37 · Glenn#1443 · Gavin#303 · Gordon#1051
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gilford? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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