Boy · Old English
Edward
Say it: ED-werd
Meaning
From Old English ead 'wealth, prosperity' and weard 'guardian'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Kept alive after the Conquest by the cult of Edward the Confessor and later by Plantagenet kings.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1880s
In the United States
- 1,300,479 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1880, about 1 in 47 boys
- 1,932 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age700 to 1100
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Eadweard
| Old English | Eadweard |
|---|---|
| Spanish | Eduardo |
| French | Édouard |
| Italian | Edoardo |
| German | Eduard |
| Norwegian | Edvard |
Famous bearers
- Edward I of England
- Edward, the Black Prince
- Edward VI
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Royal and noble genealogies
- English poll taxes and lay subsidy rolls (13th and 14th centuries)
- Anglo-Saxon charters, chronicles and church records
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.