Manford
Masculine · “a ford”
Manford is a place name of a kind that covers the English map, and the second half is the important part. Before bridges, a ford was the single most consequential fact about a stretch of river: it determined where roads went, where towns grew and where armies had to fight, and an enormous number of English settlements are named for one.
How old is the name Manford?
Manford was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Manford alive today was born around 1927, making them about 98 years old. About 300 people named Manford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Manford most popular?
Manford peaked in 1880, reaching #640 nationally. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From An Old English word for a river crossing to Manford
The story of Manford
England has hundreds of ford names, and the pattern of them maps the road system of a thousand years ago. A ford was crossable, seasonal, dangerous when the river was up, and worth controlling; a settlement grew at one because travelers had to stop there, and a market followed, and eventually a bridge. Oxford, Stratford, Bradford, Hereford and a hundred others all record a crossing that mattered before anybody built anything over it. When the bridges came the fords stopped mattering and the names stayed, which is why so many English towns are named for a feature that has not been used in eight hundred years and in some cases no longer exists.
Meaningscholars disagree
a ford
The second element is the Old English word for a river crossing and is certain. The first is not: it may be a personal name, a word for a boundary, or a worn-down form of something else entirely, and the surname has been attached to more than one place. So half the name is clear and half is a guess, which is the ordinary situation for a place-name surname.
How the name formed
- An Old English word for a river crossing
- Settlements named for the ford they grew at
- Surnames taken from those settlements
- Manford as an American first name
Pronouncing Manford
MAN-ferd
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the second reduced almost to nothing. That reduction is standard for place-name endings in English and is why Bradford, Oxford and this one all rhyme in ordinary speech.
Nicknames for Manford
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 boys named
- 191946 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #640reached in 1880
- Change vs 1976
- 0.0%5 in 1982, from 5
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.
Manfords among us
people named Manford are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Manford sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is entirely familiar and needs no coaching.
- Ford is available inside it as a modern-sounding short form.
- It has a concrete place-name meaning that can be explained in a sentence.
- It reads as a surname to most people, which is accurate and still needs explaining.
- It will be heard as Manfred, Sanford or Mumford on a first introduction.
- It is very firmly of the nineteenth century.
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Manford
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Manfords are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Manford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Manford in 2025?
- Manford is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Manford with classmates?
- Manford will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Michael#21 · Matthew#32 · Mark#244 · Mason#39 · Martin#335 · Marvin#699 · Melvin#958 · Marcus#258
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Manford? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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