Holden
Masculine · “deep valley”
Holden is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 32,507 boys against 288 girls since 1880.
Holden began as a place: a hollow in the land, a valley folded between hills, named in Old English and later attached to the families who lived there. It crossed from map to surname to first name the way Preston and Camden did, and it arrived in the mouth with a clean two-beat shape — a long open first syllable, a soft landing on the second.
How old is the name Holden?
Holden first appears in US birth records in 1902 — 123 years ago. The typical Holden is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 32,000 people named Holden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Holden most popular?
Holden peaked in 2018, reaching #217 nationally. Today it ranks #297, 80 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Holden appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From hol + denu (Old English: hollow + valley) to Holden
The story of Holden
Holden is an English place name before it is anything else, attached to settlements in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire where a valley cut into the hills. Families who came from those places carried the name with them as a surname, and it traveled to North America in that form, generations before anyone thought to put it on a birth certificate as a given name. J. D. Salinger gave it to the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, and the book kept the word in circulation among American readers for decades. Its life as a first name for boys is comparatively short, and almost all of that life has happened within living memory.
Meaning
deep valley, hollow valley
From Old English hol or holh, 'hollow', joined to denu, 'valley' — the standard reading for the English place names and the surname drawn from them.
How the name formed
- hol + denuOld English: hollow + valley
- HoldenEnglish place name
- HoldenEnglish surname
- Holdengiven name
Pronouncing Holden
HOHL-den
Two syllables, stress on the first, the o long as in 'hold'. English speakers get it right on sight; the spelling gives no trouble.
Nicknames for Holden
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
- 1902
- Most boys named
- 20171,531 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #217reached in 2018
- Change vs 2023
- −3.1%1,140 in 2025, from 1,176
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.
Holden in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Ohio, California.
Holdens among us
people named Holden are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,498 born in 2025 was named Holden
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 Carlton test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Holden's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carlton climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carlton's path sketches the road Holden is walking now.
Holden 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 Holden is headed
Holden should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Holden beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Holden in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled exactly as it sounds, and read correctly on first sight by English speakers — no dictation spelling, no correction routine.
- Sits in a well-established surname-name family alongside Camden, Bowden and Braden, so it reads as familiar even to people who have not met one.
- A documented Old English meaning behind it — hollow valley — rather than a coined or guessed origin.
- Two clean syllables with first-syllable stress, which pairs easily with both short and long surnames.
- The literary association is strong and specific: Holden Caulfield, the alienated teenage narrator of The Catcher in the Rye. Many American readers meet him in school, so the connection will be made out loud more than once. Whether that pleases you is worth deciding early.
- Its life as a given name is short and concentrated — nearly everyone carrying it is a child or a young person. There are very few adult Holdens to grow into, which some families like and others find unmooring.
- In Australia and New Zealand, Holden was for decades the name of a major car marque, and older people there will hear that first.
- It has stepped back a little from its high point, so it is neither everywhere nor unheard of — a classroom is unlikely to hold two.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Holden
Masculine · #297 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Holdens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 32,000 people named Holden are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Holden in 2025?
- Holden ranks #297 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,140 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Holden?
- About 1 in every 1,498 US boys born in 2025 was named Holden — 1,140 in all.
- Will my child share the name Holden with classmates?
- Holden will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Holden
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sonny#298 · Kohen#295 · Preston#299 · Kaleb#295 · Clayton#300 · Kenneth#294 · Reid#293 · Archie#301
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Holden? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Holden and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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