Trude
Trude was last recorded in 1974, when 5 babies were given it; 272 Americans have been recorded with it between 1940 and 1974 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Trude by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Trude mean?
Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section
Trude is “a female given name from German [in turn from Old High German, in turn from Proto-Germanic], equivalent to English Gertrude, originally a short form of names ending in -trud, especially Gjertrud.”
Possibly borrowed from German Trude, a short form of names ending in -trud, especially Gertrud. The element -trud is from Proto-Germanic *þrūþiz (“strength”), from *þrewwaną (“to grow, thrive”) + *-þiz (“abstract noun suffix”). In Gjertrud, the first element is ultimately from Old High German gēr (“spear”). Alternatively, the Scandinavian name may in some cases represent a variant of Trud, from Old Norse Þrúðr, from the same Proto-Germanic element. Compare German Trude, English Trudy, Danish Gertrud, Swedish Gertrud, Estonian Kertu and Icelandic Þrúður.
/²ˈtrʉː.də/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Trude?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #10,157, in 1974; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
19 babies in 1957, the peak
Trude peaked in 1957, when 19 girls were given it, #2,721 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | 5 | #10,157 | 3.4 |
| 1972 | 6 | #8,225 | 3.9 |
| 1971 | 7 | #7,339 | 4.2 |
| 1970 | 5 | #9,281 | 2.9 |
| 1969 | 5 | #8,638 | 3.0 |
| 1968 | 8 | #5,617 | 4.9 |
| 1966 | 10 | #4,468 | 5.9 |
| 1965 | 9 | #4,807 | 5.1 |
| 1963 | 5 | #7,588 | 2.6 |
| 1962 | 6 | #6,523 | 3.1 |
Every recorded year (31)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | 5 | #7,463 | 2.5 |
| 1960 | 11 | #4,160 | 5.4 |
| 1959 | 11 | #4,014 | 5.4 |
| 1958 | 14 | #3,368 | 7.0 |
| 1957 | 19 | #2,721 | 9.3 |
| 1956 | 15 | #3,177 | 7.5 |
| 1955 | 7 | #5,164 | 3.6 |
| 1954 | 8 | #4,622 | 4.1 |
| 1953 | 11 | #3,671 | 5.8 |
| 1952 | 9 | #4,101 | 4.9 |
| 1951 | 7 | #4,794 | 3.9 |
| 1950 | 10 | #3,646 | 5.8 |
| 1949 | 12 | #3,165 | 7.0 |
| 1948 | 7 | #4,619 | 4.1 |
| 1947 | 17 | #2,526 | 9.6 |
| 1946 | 9 | #3,647 | 5.7 |
| 1945 | 6 | #4,517 | 4.6 |
| 1944 | 9 | #3,360 | 6.8 |
| 1943 | 7 | #4,166 | 5.0 |
| 1942 | 6 | #4,597 | 4.4 |
| 1940 | 6 | #4,308 | 5.2 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Trude a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Trude has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 31 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Trude: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Trude, and how old are they?
An estimated 207 Americans named Trude and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (76% of everyone recorded); the median is 69 years old and half are between 63 and 76. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 363 people named Trude (359 women and girls, 4 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 227 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.6 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
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).
Names spelled alike
Of these 6 names spelled alike, given to 32,474 babies since 1880, Trude is the fourth most given (<1% of them). In 2025 none of their 25 babies recorded by SSA was a Trude (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
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 Trude
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 Trude and names like it
- Compare Trude and TrudyBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1950sTrude peaked in 1957.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Trude since 1910.
- The top names of 1957The year the most babies were named Trude.
- The names of the Baby BoomersMost people named Trude alive today were born 1946-1964.
- Names starting with TMost given first.