Siegfried
Masculine · “Germanic sigu and fridu”
Siegfried Sassoon was named after a Wagner opera. His mother was an enthusiast, and the poet who wrote the sharpest English verse of the First World War carried a German hero's name through it, which he noted himself with some irony.
How old is the name Siegfried?
Siegfried first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Siegfried alive today was born around 1957, making them about 68 years old. About 400 people named Siegfried are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Siegfried most popular?
Siegfried peaked in 1926, reaching #1605 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,109 places below that high. See the whole 1926 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From sigu to Siegfried
The story of Siegfried
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon was born in 1886 to a Jewish father of Baghdadi descent and an Anglo-Catholic mother who loved Wagner and named him for the hero of the Ring. He won a Military Cross, threw it in the Mersey, and published a public statement in 1917 declaring the war a deliberate prolongation of suffering, for which he was sent to Craiglockhart hospital rather than court-martialled, and where he met Wilfred Owen and helped him revise the poems that made him. Sassoon's own war poems are short, savage and unsentimental. He returned to the front afterwards and survived. The combination of a German heroic name, a Jewish surname and a British uniform was noticed at the time and by him, and the name itself, victory and peace, was not lost on anyone in 1917.
Meaning
Germanic sigu and fridu, victory and peace
Siegfried is German, joining sigu, victory, to fridu, peace or protection. The first element appears in Sigmund and Sigurd, the second in Frederick and Wilfred. He is the hero of the Nibelungenlied and of Wagner's Ring, where he corresponds to the Norse Sigurd. The American peak is 1926.
How the name formed
- sigu
- fridu
- Siegfried
Related forms: Siegfried · Sigurd · Siegfried
Pronouncing Siegfried
ZEEG-freed
Two syllables, stress on the first. German says the initial s as a z. English speakers usually say SEEG-freed.
Nicknames for Siegfried
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 192622 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1605reached in 1926
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%7 in 2025, from 7
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.
Siegfried in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Siegfried in German — same name
- Sigurd in Norse — related form
- Siegfried in Dutch — same name
Siegfrieds among us
people named Siegfried are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Siegfried
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Bennet test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Siegfried's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bennet climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bennet's path sketches the road Siegfried is walking now.
Siegfried 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
Siegfried beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Siegfried in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both elements have clear and positive meanings.
- Sieg and Freddy are both usable short forms.
- It has a documented literary history of eight hundred years.
- German and English say the initial letter differently.
- It carries strong wartime associations in English.
- Nine letters is a lot to spell out.
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Siegfried
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Siegfrieds are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Siegfried are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Siegfried in 2025?
- Siegfried ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Siegfried?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Siegfried — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Siegfried with classmates?
- Siegfried will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Siegfried
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Siegfried? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Siegfried and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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