Tadd
Masculine
Tadd is a short form of a name that the gospels cannot agree about. The lists of the twelve disciples do not match: where two of them have Thaddeus, another has a different name entirely in the same position, and the church has spent two thousand years arguing about whether that is one man with two names or two men with one slot.
How old is the name Tadd?
Tadd first appears in US birth records in 1954 — 71 years ago. The typical Tadd alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 1,300 people named Tadd are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Tadd most popular?
Tadd peaked in 1967, reaching #1003 nationally. See the whole 1967 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A name in the disciple lists that the gospels do not agree on to Tadd
The story of Tadd
The lists are in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts, and three of them agree closely while one substitutes a different name. The traditional solution is that the man had two names, which was ordinary enough at the time, and the western church settled on treating them as one person while the eastern church for a long time did not. Almost nothing else is known about him: he asks one question in John and disappears. He ended up as the patron of desperate cases, apparently because the confusion over his name meant nobody prayed to him, so he was thought to be particularly attentive to anybody who did. That is a rather good reason for a patronage and it is the only one on record.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name's origin has never been established. It may be Aramaic, connected to a word about the chest or the heart, or a Greek adaptation of something else, or a nickname. Reference works print several readings and none is supported. That is unusual for a name attached to a figure in scripture and it has not stopped anybody offering a translation.
How the name formed
- A name in the disciple lists that the gospels do not agree on
- Thaddeus in Latin and then in English
- Tad as an American short form
- Tadd, with the consonant doubled
Related forms: Tadeusz · Taddeo · Tadeo
Pronouncing Tadd
TAD
One syllable, with a short flat a. The doubled d keeps the vowel short, which a single d would also do here, so the second letter is doing very little beyond making the name look less like the ordinary English word.
Nicknames for Tadd
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
- 1954
- Most boys named
- 198562 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1003reached in 1967
- Change vs 2011
- +60.0%8 in 2013, 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.
Tadd in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Tadeusz in Polish — related form
- Taddeo in Italian — related form
- Tadeo in Spanish — related form
Tadds among us
people named Tadd are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Tadd 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
- One syllable, no ambiguity, and nothing at all to teach anybody.
- It carries a genuine scriptural name with a rather good patronage attached.
- It pairs cleanly with any longer middle name, which is what short names are for.
- It is identical in sound to an ordinary English word for a small amount.
- Tad is the commoner spelling and this one will be converted into it.
- There is no meaning to give, which is unusual for a biblical name.
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What they receive
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Tadd
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Tadds are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,300 people named Tadd are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Tadd in 2025?
- Tadd is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Tadd with classmates?
- Tadd will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Thomas#34 · Timothy#203 · Tyler#219 · Terry#1115 · Theodore#4 · Travis#434 · Todd#1609 · Tony#783
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Tadd? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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