Gladis
Feminine · “Welsh Gwladus”
Gladis is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 3,071 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Gladys fell further than almost any name on record. It was the second most popular girls' name in England and Wales in 1900, and by 1960 it was effectively gone. Names decline all the time; very few go from the top three to nothing in two generations and never recover.
How old is the name Gladis?
Gladis first appears in US birth records in 1898 — 127 years ago. The typical Gladis alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 1,900 people named Gladis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gladis most popular?
Gladis peaked in 1909, reaching #868 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 7,992 places below that high. See the whole 1909 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Gwladus to Gladis
The story of Gladis
The rise and fall are both sharp. Gwladus was a medieval Welsh name with a modest continuous history until the later nineteenth century, when a Welsh revival and a popular novel put it in front of a British audience. It entered the English top ten in the 1890s, reached second place in 1900, and stayed high through the Edwardian period. Then it collapsed: out of the top hundred by 1940 and essentially unused by 1960. What produced the fall is the usual mechanism, a name becoming so closely identified with one generation that it reads as belonging to them, but the speed and the completeness are unusual. It traveled to Spain and Latin America through film and stayed in use there for a generation longer, which is why the Spanish spelling appears in American records with a different curve from the English one.
Meaningscholars disagree
Welsh Gwladus, possibly from gwlad, a country
From the Welsh Gwladus, a medieval name of uncertain derivation; a connection to gwlad, a country or land, is often proposed and is not secure, and a link to Claudia has also been suggested. The name was popularized by a novel of 1877 and became enormous in Britain around 1900. Gladis is a Spanish and Latin American spelling; it peaks in the American data in 1909.
How the name formed
- Gwladus
- Gladys
- Gladis
Related forms: Gladys · Gwladus
Pronouncing Gladis
GLAH-dees
Two syllables, stress on the first in Spanish. English says GLAD-iss with a short a. The Welsh Gwladus is GWLAH-dis with an initial cluster English does not have.
Nicknames for Gladis
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
- 1898
- Most girls named
- 199069 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #868reached in 1909
- Change vs 2022
- −26.7%11 in 2025, from 15
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.
Gladis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gladys in English — spelling variant
- Gwladus in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Gladiss among us
people named Gladis are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Gladis
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Gladis
- #8860
- Gladis on the 2025 chart
- #900
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Gladis went to 11 girls in 2025, but Gladys is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 60, which makes it the 900th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,960 places above the chart.
- Gladys49
- Gladis11
About 1 girl in 26,788 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Gladis 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
Fashion outlook
Gladis 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
Gladis beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gladis in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has a documented Welsh medieval history.
- It is short and easy to say.
- The Spanish spelling is standard across Latin America.
- In English the name is strongly dated to the early twentieth century.
- Gladys is the standard English spelling.
- The Welsh original is unrecognizable in either form.
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Gladis
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gladiss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Gladis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Gladis?
- Gladis is one of 2 recorded spellings. Gladys is the more common one — 49 births in 2025 against 11 for Gladis.
- How popular is the name Gladis in 2025?
- Gladis ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gladis?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Gladis — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gladis with classmates?
- Gladis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gladis
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gladis? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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