Randall
Masculine · “Shield wolf”
Randall is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 198,592 boys against 1,153 girls since 1880. See Randall as a girl name
Lord Randal is one of the oldest ballads in English and it is about a poisoning. A young man comes home, is asked by his mother where he has been, and answers in the same form each time; the questions get closer and closer until he admits that his sweetheart has fed him eels that were not eels.
How old is the name Randall?
Randall was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Randall alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 154,000 people named Randall are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Randall most popular?
Randall peaked in 1955, reaching #53 nationally. Today it ranks #1499, 1,446 places below that high. See the whole 1955 chart.
Randall appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Randolf to Randall
The story of Randall
The ballad works entirely by repetition and by what is not said. Each stanza is a question and an answer with the same refrain, and the horror accumulates because the form does not change while the content does: first where he has been, then what he ate, then what happened to his dogs, then what he leaves to his mother, his brother, his sister, and finally to his true love, and the last bequest is the point of the whole song. It has been collected in dozens of versions across Britain, Ireland and America under a dozen names, and its structure has been borrowed by songwriters ever since, most famously in a song about hard rain.
Meaning
Shield wolf
The Germanic original joins a word for the rim of a shield to the word for a wolf, which is a warrior compound of the ordinary kind. Randall is the worn-down English form of it, and the doubled l at the end is an English addition that the original does not have.
How the name formed
- Randolf
- Randal
- Randall
Related forms: Randolf
Pronouncing Randall
RAN-dul
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced to nothing, which is why Randall, Randal and Randell are all said the same way and all appear in the records.
Nicknames for Randall
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
- 19607,174 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #53reached in 1955
- Change vs 2022
- −23.5%117 in 2025, from 153
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.
Randall in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Randolf in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Randalls among us
people named Randall are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 14,599 born in 2025 was named Randall
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Randall
- #1499
- Randall on the 2025 chart
- #793
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Randall went to 117 boys in 2025, but Randal is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 135, which makes it the 793rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 706 places above the chart.
- Randall117
- Randal18
About 1 boy in 12,652 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 14,599 for Randall 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
The Chester test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Randall's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Chester climbed just as high around 1919, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Chester's path sketches the road Randall is walking now.
Randall 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
Where Randall is headed
Randall is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Randall beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Randall in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, firm and easy to spell once heard, with a documented Germanic line.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- The meaning is concrete and can be given to a child in two words.
- The record carries it for girls in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- Randy is the short form most likely to attach, and it means something unhelpful in British English.
- It is strongly dated to the middle of the last century in American ears.
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Randall
Masculine · #1499 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Randalls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 154,000 people named Randall are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Randall?
- Randall is the most-used spelling in US records — 117 of the 135 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Randal.
- How popular is the name Randall in 2025?
- Randall ranks #1499 among US boy names in 2025, with 117 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Randall?
- About 1 in every 14,599 US boys born in 2025 was named Randall — 117 in all.
- Will my child share the name Randall with classmates?
- Randall will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Randall
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Clarence#1499 · Kyzer#1499 · Lazaro#1499 · Hakeem#1499 · Merritt#1499 · Zeppelin#1499 · Decker#1499 · Carver#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Randall? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Randall and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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