Lyda
Feminine · “woman of Lydia”
Lyda is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,973 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Lyda is Lydia with the middle taken out — a kingdom in Asia Minor reduced to two syllables. The Lydians are credited with inventing coined money, which is a substantial thing for a name to carry.
How old is the name Lyda?
Lyda was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Lyda alive today was born around 1921, making them about 104 years old. About 1,200 people named Lyda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lyda most popular?
Lyda peaked in 1881, reaching #240 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,702 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Lydia to Lyda
The story of Lyda
Lydia entered Christian naming through the Acts of the Apostles and became common across Europe after the Reformation. Slavic and German speakers shortened it to Lida and Lyda, and nineteenth-century American families used both — sometimes from central European emigration, sometimes as a home-grown clipping. Lyda appears in American registers from the 1870s and peaked around 1885.
Meaning
woman of Lydia
Through Lydia, from the Greek name of a kingdom in western Asia Minor. The woman called Lydia in Acts is described as a seller of purple cloth from Thyatira, and her name means simply that she came from that region. Lydia's own name is pre-Greek and not further recoverable.
How the name formed
- Lydia
- Lyda
Related forms: Lida · Lidia · Lidia
Pronouncing Lyda
LY-duh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a long i. Some families said LEE-duh instead, which follows the Slavic form.
Nicknames for Lyda
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1921114 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #240reached in 1881
- Change vs 2022
- −61.5%5 in 2025, from 13
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.
Lyda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lida in English — spelling variant
- Lidia in Russian — related form
- Lidia in Italian — related form
Lydas among us
people named Lyda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Lyda
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lyda
- #14942
- Lyda on the 2025 chart
- #944
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lyda went to 5 girls in 2025, but Lida is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 16, which makes it the 944th most-given girls’ name of the year — 13,998 places above the chart.
- Lida11
- Lyda5
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Lyda 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
Fashion outlook
Lyda 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
Lyda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lyda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Lydia stands behind it with a documented history reaching into the ancient world.
- Four letters, two syllables, and easy for a child to write early.
- It is genuinely rare now while being entirely traditional.
- Two pronunciations of the first vowel are recorded in American use.
- It is strongly period-coded to the late nineteenth century.
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Lyda
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lydas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Lyda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lyda?
- Lyda is one of 2 recorded spellings. Lida is the more common one — 11 births in 2025 against 5 for Lyda.
- How popular is the name Lyda in 2025?
- Lyda ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lyda?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Lyda — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lyda with classmates?
- Lyda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lyda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Archie#14942 · Maurine#14942 · Mackie#14942 · Babette#14942 · Omega#14942 · Grethel#14942 · Romona#14942 · Evelene#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lyda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lyda and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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