Heidi
Feminine · “noble kind”
Heidi is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 149,326 girls against 361 boys since 1880.
Heidi is the Swiss-German short form of Adelheid, and it traveled the world on the back of one book: Johanna Spyri's 1881 novel about a girl sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps, which has never gone out of print. Two syllables, both of them open, and an English spelling that matches the German one exactly — rare for a name that crossed over.
How old is the name Heidi?
Heidi first appears in US birth records in 1929 — 96 years ago. The typical Heidi alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 141,000 people named Heidi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Heidi most popular?
Heidi peaked in 1974, reaching #60 nationally. Today it ranks #340, 280 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Heidi appears on these lists:
- One-decade wonders
- Scottish gems the US hasn't discovered
- Under the radar: quietly excellent picks
- German names, sturdy and storied
- Names that belong entirely to the 1970s
- Names ending in -i
- all guides
Works in British families too:
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Heidi
The story of Heidi
The name begins as Adalheidis in Old High German, a compound of 'noble' and 'kind', and became Adelheid across the German-speaking lands. In Switzerland and southern Germany it was clipped, as long names are, to Heidi. Johanna Spyri gave that pet form to the heroine of her 1881 children's novel, and the book's enormous success carried the short form out of the Alps as a full name in its own right — into English, into Scandinavian use, and onto American birth records within a couple of generations.
Meaning
noble kind, noble sort
Heidi is a pet form of the Germanic Adelheid, from adal 'noble' and heit 'kind, sort, being'. The same root gives Adelaide.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Adelheid
- Heidi
Related forms: Heidi · Adelheid · Heidi · Heidi · Adélaïde · Adelaide
Pronouncing Heidi
HY-dee
The German 'ei' says 'eye', so the first syllable rhymes with 'high'. English and German say it the same way, which is why the spelling never had to change.
Nicknames for Heidi
High
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
- 1929
- Most girls named
- 19714,714 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #60reached in 1974
- Change vs 2023
- +3.0%894 in 2025, from 868
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.
Heidi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Heidi in German — same name
- Adelheid in German — related form
- Heidi in Norwegian — same name
- Heidi in Finnish — same name
- Adélaïde in French — related form
- Adelaide in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida. International figures from National Records of Scotland. Sources
Heidis among us
people named Heidi are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,798 born in 2025 was named Heidi
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Heidi
- #340
- Heidi on the 2025 chart
- #311
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Heidi went to 894 girls in 2025, but Heidy and Heydi are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 1,012, which makes it the 311th most-given girls’ name of the year — 29 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,588 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,798 for Heidi 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 Valerie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Heidi's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Valerie climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Valerie's path sketches the road Heidi is walking now.
Heidi 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
Where Heidi is headed
Heidi should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Heidi beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Heidi in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled and said the same way in English and German — no adjustment needed when it crosses borders.
- Two syllables, phonetic in English, and almost never misheard once said aloud.
- Has a formal long form available, Adelheid or Adelaide, for anyone who wants one on a document.
- A long unbroken record in American use rather than a recent arrival, and it still charts in Scotland.
- Familiar to nearly everyone without being common in any classroom.
- The Spyri novel is inseparable from the name. Expect Alps, goats and grandfathers to come up — affectionately, but often, and for life.
- It is a diminutive by origin, so there is no built-in longer version unless you register Adelheid or Adelaide and treat Heidi as the everyday name.
- Variant spellings like Heidy and Heidee exist, so the occasional form will come back needing correction — a small, repeated nuisance rather than a real problem.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Heidi
Feminine · #340 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Heidis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 141,000 people named Heidi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Heidi?
- Heidi is the most-used spelling in US records — 894 of the 1,012 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Heidy and Heydi.
- How popular is the name Heidi in 2025?
- Heidi ranks #340 among US girl names in 2025, with 894 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Heidi?
- About 1 in every 1,798 US girls born in 2025 was named Heidi — 894 in all.
- Will my child share the name Heidi with classmates?
- Heidi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Heidi
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Teagan#340 · Emory#339 · Miley#338 · Leighton#342 · Aisha#337 · Annabelle#343 · Ryleigh#343 · Anaya#336
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Heidi? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Heidi and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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