Oda
Feminine · “Wealth”
Oda is given to both — 1,324 girls and 301 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Oda is three letters and two syllables with no consonant cluster anywhere in it, which is the shape of a Germanic name that was already old when the first records were written down. It has belonged to women and to men, and the American record holds it for both.
How old is the name Oda?
Oda was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Oda alive today was born around 1913, making them about 112 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Oda are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Oda most popular?
Oda peaked in 1889, reaching #486 nationally. See the whole 1889 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aud to Oda
The story of Oda
Oda belonged to the Frankish and Saxon aristocracy and stayed in use across German-speaking Europe for a thousand years, worn by abbesses, duchesses and farmers' daughters in turn. It was also a man's name. Oda, archbishop of Canterbury in the middle of the tenth century, was the son of a Dane who had come to England with the Viking army; he rebuilt the roof of his cathedral and set the crown on a king's head, and his name is the same word. The form reached the United States with German and Scandinavian immigration, where it lost the aristocratic associations and became a farm-country name, short and unfussy, in a period when short names were in favor.
Meaning
Wealth, inherited property
The single element is Germanic od, earlier aud, which meant wealth in a particular sense: property that comes down through a family, rather than money that is earned. It sits inside a long list of names, among them Otto, Odo, Ottilie and Odette, and it survives outside naming altogether in the legal term allod, land held outright with no obligation to any lord, from which the word allodial comes. A name meaning inheritance was a plain statement about what a child stood to receive.
How the name formed
- aud
- Uota
- Oda
Related forms: Oda · Oda · Uota · Ode
Pronouncing Oda
OH-duh
Two syllables, stress on the first, the d fully voiced. German and Norwegian speakers say the same thing with a purer second vowel, closer to OH-dah. There is nothing in the spelling to trip over in any of these languages.
Nicknames for Oda
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
- 192443 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #486reached in 1889
- Change vs 1952
- 0.0%5 in 1962, 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.
Oda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Oda in German — same name
- Oda in Norwegian — same name
- Uota in Old High German — related form
- Ode in Dutch — spelling variant
Odas among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Oda are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Oda 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
- Three letters that spell themselves, in a shape that works unchanged in English, German, Dutch and Norwegian.
- It is genuinely old rather than old-fashioned, with more than a thousand years of continuous use behind it.
- Short enough that it never gets shortened, which spares a child the usual negotiation over nicknames.
- The record carries this spelling for boys and for girls alike, so the name does not announce a child's sex and forms will guess.
- It is very rare in the United States now and will be heard as an older person's name by anyone who has met one.
- Ada, Oona and Odessa are all close enough to be substituted by ear, and all three are more familiar.
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What they receive
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Oda
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Odas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Oda are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Oda in 2025?
- Oda is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Oda with classmates?
- Oda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Olivia#1 · Opal#423 · Olive#197 · Olga#3167 · Ollie#2276 · Ora#3712 · Ola#7885 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Oda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Oda and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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