Godwin
Masculine · “friend of God”
Godwin is an Old English name that England stopped using and West Africa kept. It belonged to the most powerful man in eleventh-century England, then almost vanished after the Norman Conquest, and its American peak — 1983 — has nothing to do with Anglo-Saxons: it tracks Nigerian and Ghanaian migration, where Godwin has been a common Christian name for a century.
How old is the name Godwin?
Godwin first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Godwin alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 500 people named Godwin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Godwin most popular?
Godwin peaked in 1983, reaching #3071 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 2,790 places below that high. See the whole 1983 chart.
Where it comes from
From Godwine to Godwin
The story of Godwin
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, was the dominant figure in English politics under Edward the Confessor and the father of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king. After 1066 the Anglo-Saxon name stock collapsed almost completely, replaced within two generations by Norman names, and Godwin survived mainly as a surname. Its modern life is elsewhere. Christian missionary activity in West Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries drew on a stock of transparently pious English names — Godwin, Blessing, Precious, Godspower, Emmanuel — and Godwin became genuinely common in Nigeria and Ghana. American records for the name follow that migration, which is why an eleventh-century English name peaks here in the 1980s.
Meaning
friend of God
Old English god, 'god', and wine, 'friend' — the same second element as in Edwin, Baldwin and Alvin, and a very common one in Anglo-Saxon naming. The compound is transparent and the derivation is settled. English wine, 'friend', is unrelated to the drink and survives now only inside these fossilized names.
How the name formed
- Godwine
- Godwin
Related forms: Gottwin · Goodwin
Pronouncing Godwin
GOD-win
Two syllables, stress on the first, exactly as the two words it is made of. There is no competing saying, and the spelling is completely transparent.
Nicknames for Godwin
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 201122 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3071reached in 1983
- Change vs 2024
- +7.1%15 in 2025, from 14
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.
Godwin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gottwin in German — related form
- Goodwin in English — spelling variant
Godwins among us
people named Godwin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Godwin
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 Kenzie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Godwin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kenzie climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kenzie's path sketches the road Godwin is walking now.
Godwin 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
Godwin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Godwin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is transparent to any English speaker without explanation.
- It has a documented eleventh-century English history and a living West African one.
- Win and Goddy are both usable short forms with different characters.
- The first element is the word God, which some contexts make conspicuous.
- It is easily confused with the surname Goodwin.
- It reads as either very old or very contemporary depending on who is hearing it.
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What they receive
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Godwin
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Godwins 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 Godwin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Godwin in 2025?
- Godwin ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Godwin?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Godwin — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Godwin with classmates?
- Godwin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Godwin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Godwin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Godwin and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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