Cade
Cade was given to 1,392 boys in 2025, #248 among boys’ names; 34,918 Americans have been recorded with it since 1953 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 34,300 Americans named Cade and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 19 years old and half are between 9 and 25.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Cade by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Cade mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Cade is “a male given name” Its etymology gives the sense “lump, swelling” (meaning).
Also “a male given name transferred from the surname.”
As an English surname, from an old personal name Cada, from a Germanic root meaning “lump, swelling” and perhaps related to the next sense.
Also as an English occupational surname for a cooper, from Old French cade (“barrel, cask”), from Latin cadus.
Also as an English surname, from the noun cade (sense 1) (“domestic animal”).
As a French surname, spelling variant of Cadé, from cade (“juniper”).
/keɪd/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Cade?
#248 among boys’ names, 2025
Cade rose from #364 in 2015 to #248 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 0.47 to 0.81 per 1,000.
1,817 babies in 2001, the peak
Cade peaked in 2001, when 1,817 babies were given it (1,811 boys, #201 among boys’ names). The 1,398 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 77% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,392 | #248 | 0.81 |
| 2024 | 1,265 | #272 | 0.73 |
| 2023 | 1,218 | #280 | 0.71 |
| 2022 | 1,170 | #292 | 0.67 |
| 2021 | 961 | #338 | 0.55 |
| 2020 | 823 | #376 | 0.48 |
| 2019 | 787 | #397 | 0.44 |
| 2018 | 830 | #386 | 0.46 |
| 2017 | 697 | #445 | 0.38 |
| 2016 | 781 | #410 | 0.41 |
Every recorded year (61)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 892 | #364 | 0.47 |
| 2014 | 880 | #361 | 0.46 |
| 2013 | 807 | #376 | 0.43 |
| 2012 | 821 | #369 | 0.43 |
| 2011 | 867 | #347 | 0.46 |
| 2010 | 949 | #330 | 0.49 |
| 2009 | 986 | #325 | 0.50 |
| 2008 | 1,074 | #309 | 0.53 |
| 2007 | 1,173 | #294 | 0.57 |
| 2006 | 1,215 | #287 | 0.59 |
| 2005 | 1,162 | #286 | 0.58 |
| 2004 | 1,309 | #253 | 0.66 |
| 2003 | 1,576 | #221 | 0.80 |
| 2002 | 1,716 | #208 | 0.88 |
| 2001 | 1,811 | #201 | 0.93 |
| 2000 | 1,646 | #216 | 0.84 |
| 1999 | 1,498 | #225 | 0.78 |
| 1998 | 806 | #336 | 0.42 |
| 1997 | 480 | #460 | 0.25 |
| 1996 | 428 | #493 | 0.23 |
| 1995 | 393 | #516 | 0.21 |
| 1994 | 303 | #590 | 0.16 |
| 1993 | 221 | #695 | 0.11 |
| 1992 | 163 | #823 | 0.08 |
| 1991 | 142 | #882 | 0.07 |
| 1990 | 136 | #878 | 0.07 |
| 1989 | 112 | #960 | 0.06 |
| 1988 | 104 | #943 | 0.05 |
| 1987 | 108 | #903 | 0.06 |
| 1986 | 84 | #1,008 | 0.05 |
| 1985 | 102 | #897 | 0.06 |
| 1984 | 72 | #1,055 | 0.04 |
| 1983 | 78 | #1,002 | 0.04 |
| 1982 | 60 | #1,195 | 0.03 |
| 1981 | 79 | #1,024 | 0.04 |
| 1980 | 64 | #1,134 | 0.04 |
| 1979 | 55 | #1,242 | 0.03 |
| 1978 | 50 | #1,272 | 0.03 |
| 1977 | 76 | #981 | 0.05 |
| 1976 | 37 | #1,471 | 0.02 |
| 1975 | 61 | #1,068 | 0.04 |
| 1974 | 60 | #1,068 | 0.04 |
| 1973 | 60 | #1,048 | 0.04 |
| 1972 | 66 | #993 | 0.04 |
| 1971 | 17 | #2,291 | 0.01 |
| 1970 | 9 | #3,306 | under 0.01 |
| 1969 | 8 | #3,344 | under 0.01 |
| 1968 | 9 | #2,933 | 0.01 |
| 1966 | 10 | #2,644 | 0.01 |
| 1965 | 8 | #3,012 | under 0.01 |
| 1953 | 5 | #3,870 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Cade a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Cade has been given almost only to boys: 146 girls in 61 years of records.
Girls and boys named Cade: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Cade, and how old are they?
34,300 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 98% of the 34,918 Americans ever recorded as Cade. The median Cade alive today is 19 years old; half are between 9 and 25.
The 2020 Census counted 27,587 people named Cade (191 women and girls, 27,396 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 27,880 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1% below that prediction.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Baby Boomers | 1946-1964 | 3 |
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 532 |
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 2,480 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 18,800 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 12,500 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Cade born?
The states with the most babies named Cade are Ohio, Texas and California, with 23% of its births recorded by state in 2025.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, boys | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 119 | #113 | 1.1× |
| Texas | 106 | #353 | 1.3× |
| California | 98 | #357 | 0.6× |
| Michigan | 84 | #119 | 0.9× |
| Florida | 78 | #267 | 0.7× |
| Pennsylvania | 72 | #179 | 0.7× |
| North Carolina | 53 | #233 | 0.8× |
| Tennessee | 51 | #184 | 1.2× |
| Indiana | 51 | #163 | 1.0× |
| Georgia | 40 | #309 | 0.8× |
Where Cade is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Cade is most over-represented in Louisiana: since 1953 it was given 2.3 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among boys’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Cade with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 62,203 babies since 1880, Cade is the most given (56% of them). In 2025 it was given to 1,398 of their 2,566 babies (54%), again the most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Cade
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Cade and names like it
- Compare Cade and KadeBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2000sCade peaked in 2001.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Cade since 1910.
- From surnamesWiktionary’s origin for Cade: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2001The year the most babies were named Cade.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Cade alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with CMost given first.