Rashad
Masculine · “right guidance”
Rashad is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 16,247 boys against 85 girls since 1880.
Rashad is Arabic for right guidance — a word from the Quran, and one of the qualities the text names directly as what a person should be given.
How old is the name Rashad?
Rashad first appears in US birth records in 1973 — 52 years ago. The typical Rashad alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 15,500 people named Rashad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Rashad most popular?
Rashad peaked in 1987, reaching #336 nationally. Today it ranks #1708, 1,372 places below that high. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From rashad to Rashad
The story of Rashad
The r-sh-d root is prominent in the Quran, and Rashid and Rashad are both long-established Arabic names — Harun al-Rashid was the Abbasid caliph of the Arabian Nights. Rashad entered American records in the 1960s and 1970s, in a period when Arabic and African names were being adopted by American families, and it peaked in the mid-1970s.
Meaning
right guidance, good sense
From the Arabic rashad, 'right guidance' or 'integrity', from the root r-sh-d, which carries the sense of following a straight path. The same root gives Rashid, 'rightly guided', which is one of the ninety-nine names of God. The word is ordinary Arabic and the meaning undisputed.
How the name formed
- rashad
- Rashad
Related forms: رشاد · Rashid · Reşat
Pronouncing Rashad
ruh-SHAHD
Two syllables, stress on the second. Arabic gives the final consonant a fuller emphatic quality.
Nicknames for Rashad
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
- 1973
- Most boys named
- 1990677 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #336reached in 1987
- Change vs 2024
- +3.3%95 in 2025, from 92
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.
Rashad in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- رشاد in Arabic — transliteration
- Rashid in Arabic — related form
- Reşat in Turkish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Georgia, Texas.
Rashads among us
people named Rashad are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 17,980 born in 2025 was named Rashad
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Rashad
- #1708
- Rashad on the 2025 chart
- #820
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Rashad went to 95 boys in 2025, but Rashaad is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 108, which makes it the 820th most-given boys’ name of the year — 888 places above the chart.
- Rashad95
- Rashaad13
About 1 boy in 15,816 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 17,980 for Rashad 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 Gerry test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Rashad's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Gerry climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Gerry's path sketches the road Rashad is walking now.
Rashad 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 Rashad is headed
Rashad is easing off slowly — about 23% 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.
Rashad beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Rashad in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is transparent, undisputed and unusually substantial.
- It is a living Arabic name with a long documented history.
- The end stress gives it a strong rhythm against a front-stressed surname.
- The Rash clipping is unfortunate as an English word.
- Rashid is the commoner related form internationally.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s in American records.
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What they receive
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Rashad
Masculine · #1708 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rashads are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 15,500 people named Rashad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Rashad?
- Rashad is the most-used spelling in US records — 95 of the 108 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Rashaad.
- How popular is the name Rashad in 2025?
- Rashad ranks #1708 among US boy names in 2025, with 95 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Rashad?
- About 1 in every 17,980 US boys born in 2025 was named Rashad — 95 in all.
- Will my child share the name Rashad with classmates?
- Rashad will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Rashad
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Antoine#1708 · Kainoa#1708 · Henri#1708 · Azir#1708 · Koast#1708 · Ayansh#1708 · Zuriel#1708 · Marlo#1708
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Rashad? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Rashad and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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