Ladon
Masculine
Ladon is given to both — 1,260 boys and 323 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Ladon was the dragon with a hundred heads that guarded the golden apples at the world's western edge, and Hercules killed it. The American name is almost certainly not that, which is worth saying plainly.
How old is the name Ladon?
Ladon first appears in US birth records in 1930 — 95 years ago. The typical Ladon alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 1,100 people named Ladon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ladon most popular?
Ladon peaked in 1945, reaching #1581 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,114 places below that high. See the whole 1945 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Ladon
It is tempting to reach for the impressive coincidence, and worth resisting. The Greek Ladon is a genuine mythological name, borne by the serpent coiled around the tree of golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides and by an Arcadian river; after Hercules killed the dragon it was placed in the sky as the constellation Draco. None of that has any documented route into twentieth-century American naming, and the far likelier account is the ordinary one: the La- prefix, productive in American coinage for decades, attached to Don, one of the most common men's names of the period. The two possibilities are not equally probable, and pretending otherwise would be flattering rather than honest. The myth is worth knowing on its own account.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Ladon in American records is most plausibly built from the La- prefix and the name Don, following a pattern productive from the 1930s onward. The Greek Ladon, a dragon of the Hesperides and a river god of Arcadia, is a separate name that happens to match the spelling. The peak is 1945.
Pronouncing Ladon
luh-DON
Two syllables, stress on the second. The Greek Ladon is LAY-don with the stress at the front.
Nicknames for Ladon
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
- 1930
- Most boys named
- 201229 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1581reached in 1945
- Change vs 2023
- −40.0%6 in 2025, from 10
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.
Ladon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ladonn in English — spelling variant
- Ladon in Greek — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Ohio.
Ladons among us
people named Ladon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Ladon
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 Simuel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ladon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Simuel climbed just as high around 1913, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Simuel's path sketches the road Ladon is walking now.
Ladon 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
Ladon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ladon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Don works as a short form and is a complete name.
- Two syllables with the weight at the end.
- It is genuinely uncommon in every decade.
- The mythological connection is a coincidence, not an origin.
- It will be heard as Landon or Laden.
- The 1945 peak dates it closely.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Ladon
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ladons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Ladon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ladon in 2025?
- Ladon ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ladon?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Ladon — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ladon with classmates?
- Ladon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ladon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ladon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ladon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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