Melford
Masculine · “Mill ford”
Melford is a mill and a ford, and the Suffolk village that carries it is called Long Melford because the street is a mile from end to end. It is one of the wool towns, and the church at the top of that street was built by clothiers who wanted everybody to know how well the trade had gone.
How old is the name Melford?
Melford first appears in US birth records in 1904 — 121 years ago. The typical Melford alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 300 people named Melford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Melford most popular?
Melford peaked in 1921, reaching #1026 nationally. See the whole 1921 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Melaforda to Melford
The story of Melford
The wool churches of East Anglia are the most conspicuous evidence anywhere of what a single industry did to a region. When English cloth was the best in Europe, the merchants who handled it built or rebuilt their parish churches on a scale that has nothing to do with the size of the villages, with vast windows, hammerbeam roofs, and inscriptions running round the outside naming the donors and asking for prayers. Long Melford's is nearly seventy meters long, in a village of a few hundred houses, and the clerestory is almost entirely glass. The trade moved elsewhere within a century or two, the money went with it, and the buildings stayed, too expensive to alter and too large to fill.
Meaning
Mill ford
Old English myln, a mill, and ford, a shallow crossing: the place where the road crossed the water by the mill. Both elements are among the commonest in English place naming. The surname identifies a family from there, and nothing in it describes a person.
How the name formed
- Melaforda
- Melford
Pronouncing Melford
MEL-furd
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced almost to nothing, which is true of every English name ending in -ford and is why they are so often misspelled from dictation.
Nicknames for Melford
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
- 1904
- Most boys named
- 192146 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1026reached in 1921
- Change vs 1977
- +40.0%7 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.
Melfords among us
people named Melford 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
Melford 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
- Short, firm and easy to spell, with a meaning that can be given in three words.
- Mel and Ford are two short forms with nothing in common.
- It has a documented English origin that can be found on any map.
- It reads as a surname and will be entered in the wrong column on forms.
- It will be heard as Milford, which is a different place and a commoner name.
- It is strongly dated to the early twentieth century in American records.
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Melford
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Melfords 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 Melford are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Melford in 2025?
- Melford is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Melford with classmates?
- Melford 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
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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