Hedwig — girls' name

What the Data Says About Hedwig

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,077 babies named Hedwig between 1880 and 1968, spanning 89 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Hedwig currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1968. The name reached its historical peak in 1918, when 159 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Hedwig performed strongest in the 1910s, accumulating 1,090 births during that ten-year window. Across the 9 decades of recorded activity, Hedwig shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Pennsylvania, which accounts for 370 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and New Jersey. In total, SSA state-level files list Hedwig in 14 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Hedwig in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 3,077 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.