Ingrid
Feminine
Ingrid is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 27,747 girls against 17 boys since 1880.
Ingrid comes out of Old Norse, built from the name of the god Ing and carried through medieval Scandinavia in forms like Ingiríðr. It has crossed into English, German and Dutch without changing a single letter, which few names of that age manage. In the mouth it is two crisp syllables that land firmly and then stop — no drift, no ambiguity about where the stress goes.
How old is the name Ingrid?
Ingrid first appears in US birth records in 1897 — 128 years ago. The typical Ingrid alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 25,000 people named Ingrid are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ingrid most popular?
Ingrid peaked in 1967, reaching #380 nationally. Today it ranks #1120, 740 places below that high. See the whole 1967 chart.
Ingrid appears on these lists:
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- Scandinavian names, cool by design
- Golden-age Hollywood names
- Norse mythology names
- Viking names from the sagas
- all guides
Works in Scandinavian families too:
Where it comes from
From Ing / Yngvi (god-name element) to Ingrid
The story of Ingrid
The name belongs to the old Norse naming stock, where the god-name Ing was joined to a second element to make a whole family of names still in use across Scandinavia. Medieval Norwegian and Swedish records carry it as Ingiríðr and Ingerid, and the shortened Ingrid became the standard modern form in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, then spread to German- and Dutch-speaking Europe. It reached American records with Scandinavian immigration — which is why it still sits so firmly in Minnesota — and picked up a second wave of attention in the English-speaking world alongside mid-twentieth-century Swedish cinema. Twentieth-century Scandinavian royalty carried it too, keeping it formal as well as familiar.
Meaningscholars disagree
Ing (an old Norse god) combined with an element read as "fair, beautiful" or as "rider"
The first half is not in doubt: Ing, also called Yngvi, a deity of the early Germanic north whose name seeded dozens of Scandinavian names — Ingeborg, Ingemar, Inga. The second half is where readings compete. Most trace it to Old Norse fríðr, "fair, beautiful," giving something like "fair one of Ing." Others derive the name from Ingiríðr, where -ríðr is the element meaning "ride" or "rider." Both derivations are serious, and the name is the same either way.
How the name formed
- Ing / Yngvigod-name element
- IngiríðrOld Norse
- Ingerid / Ingerimedieval Norwegian
- Ingrid
Related forms: Ingrid · Ingerid · Ingiríður · Ingrid · Inkeri · Ingrid
Pronouncing Ingrid
ING-grid
Stress on the first syllable. Scandinavian speakers give it a lighter, tapped r and less of a hard g in the middle — closer to ING-rid — but the English pronunciation is well established and rarely questioned.
Nicknames for Ingrid
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
- 1897
- Most girls named
- 1966524 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #380reached in 1967
- Change vs 2022
- −6.7%209 in 2025, from 224
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.
Ingrid in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ingrid in Swedish — same name
- Ingerid in Norwegian — spelling variant
- Ingiríður in Icelandic — same name
- Ingrid in German — same name
- Inkeri in Finnish — related form
- Ingrid in Dutch — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Minnesota, Texas.
Ingrids among us
people named Ingrid are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,690 born in 2025 was named Ingrid
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 Jeanie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ingrid's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jeanie climbed just as high around 1949, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jeanie's path sketches the road Ingrid is walking now.
Ingrid 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 Ingrid is headed
Ingrid 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.
Ingrid beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ingrid in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled identically in English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, so it survives borders without adjustment.
- One reading and one stress pattern in English: people who hear it can usually spell it, and people who read it say it right.
- A documented line back to Old Norse, with unbroken use in Scandinavia ever since.
- Established short forms — Inga, Inge — that are real names, not invented pet forms.
- It is misspelled as Ingred often enough to be worth expecting, since English has no other common word ending in -grid.
- The name reads clearly as northern European. That is an asset in some places and a small biography she will repeat in others.
- In Scandinavia itself Ingrid is strongly associated with older generations, so relatives from there may hear it as their grandmother's name rather than a new one.
- In an American classroom she will most likely be the only one — never a surname initial, but also a name she will spell aloud at coffee counters for life.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Ingrid
Feminine · #1120 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ingrids are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 25,000 people named Ingrid are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ingrid in 2025?
- Ingrid ranks #1120 among US girl names in 2025, with 209 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ingrid?
- About 1 in every 7,690 US girls born in 2025 was named Ingrid — 209 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ingrid with classmates?
- Ingrid will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ingrid
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Princess#1120 · Ida#1120 · Xolani#1120 · Raquel#1120 · Rhiannon#1119 · Imogen#1117 · Kacey#1117 · Kit#1125
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ingrid? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ingrid and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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