Slade
Masculine · Old English roots · “valley”
Slade is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 6,094 boys against 7 girls since 1880.
Slade began as an English landscape word — a valley, a dell, a low green strip of ground — and became the surname of families who lived beside one. It moved from map to surname to first name the way Blake and Reid did, and it says itself in a single stroke: one syllable, one obvious spelling, no second guess.
How old is the name Slade?
Slade first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Slade alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 5,900 people named Slade are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Slade most popular?
Slade peaked in 2007, reaching #855 nationally. Today it ranks #1054, 199 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Slade appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From slæd (Old English, 'valley, dell') to Slade
The story of Slade
The root is the Old English noun slæd, used across medieval England for a dell or a stretch of low, level, grassy land. It stuck to the landscape first, then to people: families were recorded as living at the slade, and the surname settled into English registers by the Middle Ages. From there it followed the ordinary English surname route into American use, where it turned up as a given name in the mid-twentieth century and has held a small, unbroken place ever since. Along the way it picked up a loud aside — the British glam rock band Slade, one of the defining chart acts of 1970s Britain — which is why the name still reads as familiar to many people who have never met a Slade.
Meaning
valley, dell, low flat ground
From Old English slæd, a word for a small valley or grassy hollow; it survives in English place names and in the surname taken by people who lived near one.
How the name formed
- slædOld English, 'valley, dell'
- SladeEnglish place and surname
- Sladegiven name
Pronouncing Slade
SLAYD
One syllable, rhyming with made. Nearly everyone gets it right on first sight, and the spelling is recovered correctly from hearing it.
Nicknames for Slade
Limited
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
- 1946
- Most boys named
- 2007246 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #855reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −1.4%208 in 2025, from 211
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.
Slade in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, Louisiana.
Slades among us
people named Slade are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,212 born in 2025 was named Slade
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 Rosendo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Slade's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rosendo climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rosendo's path sketches the road Slade is walking now.
Slade 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 Slade is headed
Slade should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Slade beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Slade in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, spelled the only way it sounds — rarely misheard, rarely misspelled.
- A documented English surname with centuries behind it, so it arrives as a real name rather than a coinage.
- Meaning is plain and settled: an Old English word for a valley, still visible in English place names.
- Holds a small but continuous place in American records across several decades, without a boom-and-bust spike.
- It resists nicknames. With one syllable and no traditional short form, a child gets the full name and little else — fine for some families, limiting if you like having a softer option in reserve.
- It sits one sound away from the slang "slay" / "slayed," which schoolmates will notice at some point. Usually harmless, occasionally tiresome.
- Slade Wilson is a long-running DC Comics villain, and the 1970s British band Slade is still in heavy rotation at Christmas — so the name carries pop-culture echoes that vary a lot by listener.
- It reads as a surname-style name, which pairs cleanly with longer last names but can sound clipped beside a short, hard one-syllable surname. Worth saying the full combination aloud.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Slade
Masculine · Old English roots · #1054 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Slades are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,900 people named Slade are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Slade in 2025?
- Slade ranks #1054 among US boy names in 2025, with 208 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Slade?
- About 1 in every 8,212 US boys born in 2025 was named Slade — 208 in all.
- Will my child share the name Slade with classmates?
- Slade will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Slade
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Marcellus#1054 · Ollie#1056 · Leighton#1056 · Dash#1056 · Rishi#1056 · Gordon#1051 · Cedric#1051 · Krishiv#1051
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Slade? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Slade and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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