Weldon
Masculine · “hill by the spring”
Weldon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 14,249 boys against 25 girls since 1880.
Weldon is an English place name — the hill by the spring — and it names a Northamptonshire village whose quarries supplied stone for Cambridge colleges.
How old is the name Weldon?
Weldon first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Weldon alive today was born around 1939, making them about 86 years old. About 5,700 people named Weldon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Weldon most popular?
Weldon peaked in 1920, reaching #323 nationally. Today it ranks #2765, 2,442 places below that high. See the whole 1920 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From wella dun to Weldon
The story of Weldon
Place names became surnames in England from the twelfth century, and Weldon traveled to America with emigration. It entered given-name use in the nineteenth century, most strongly in the American South, alongside Sheldon, Alden and Elden, which share its shape and ending. Weldon peaked in American records around 1920.
Meaning
hill by the spring
From the Old English wella, 'spring' or 'well', and dun, 'hill'. Both elements are among the commonest in English place names, and the compound is transparent. Weldon in Northamptonshire is the best-known of the places so named.
How the name formed
- wella dun
- Weldon
Related forms: Welden · Sheldon
Pronouncing Weldon
WEL-dun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Weldon and Welden are said identically.
Nicknames for Weldon
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 1921280 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #323reached in 1920
- Change vs 2022
- +4.5%46 in 2025, from 44
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.
Weldon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Welden in English — spelling variant
- Sheldon in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, North Carolina.
Weldons among us
people named Weldon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 37,132 born in 2025 was named Weldon
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 Johnson test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Weldon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Johnson climbed just as high around 1905, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Johnson's path sketches the road Weldon is walking now.
Weldon 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 Weldon is headed
Weldon should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Weldon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Weldon 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 concrete and belongs to a very large family of English place names.
- Don is available as a short form with its own substantial record.
- Two firm syllables that carry well against any surname.
- Sheldon is close enough to cause confusion in speech.
- It reads as a surname before it reads as a given name.
- It is strongly period-coded to the early twentieth century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Weldon
Masculine · #2765 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Weldons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,700 people named Weldon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Weldon in 2025?
- Weldon ranks #2765 among US boy names in 2025, with 46 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Weldon?
- About 1 in every 37,132 US boys born in 2025 was named Weldon — 46 in all.
- Will my child share the name Weldon with classmates?
- Weldon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Weldon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Stephon#2765 · Jafet#2765 · Dwight#2765 · Sheldon#2765 · Mills#2765 · Asante#2765 · Arlin#2765 · Yandel#2765
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Weldon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Weldon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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