Rod — boys' name

What the Data Says About Rod

The Social Security Administration has registered 8,744 babies named Rod between 1910 and 2023, spanning 114 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Rod currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 1960, when 495 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Rod performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 3,745 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, Rod shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 1,490 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Ohio and Michigan. In total, SSA state-level files list Rod in 39 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Rod 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 8,744 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.