Alfred is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The name Alfred isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all boys names, Alfred ranks 808. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 1 were named Alfred. In the entire USA, approximately 222,141 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Alfred. That is 0.07 % of all living Americans.
Combining the Old English words ‘ælf’ and ‘ræd’, the name Ælfræd developed into Alfred which means ‘elf counsel’. It is one of the few Old English names that survived the Norman Conquest in the 11th century. Most names were replaced by Norman names like Richard, Henry, or William.
Until the 1950s,... Alfred was very popular in the US, being a Top100 name for several decades.
Appearing throughout the time in the United States, the name Alfred is a staple in the country: Boys have been given the name Alfred for more than 140 years, according to official U.S. naming statistics. Therefore, Alfred is one of the 442 boys' names, that have been given to newborn sons every year since 1880. Even beyond that, Alfred is a very special name that peaked in popularity over 100 years ago in the 19th century, ranking in the top 100 boys' names in our SmartGenius first name statistics: Placed at #31 Alfred has never been more popular than back in 1882.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Alfred was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
As many as 285 babies were named Alfred in the USA in 2022, ranking it #791 on the list of the most popular boys' names for that year. However, it experienced its lowest point of popularity in 2013, when it was only ranked at #898 of all male names in our SmartGenius statistics - back then 208 boys were named Alfred.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Alfred is one of them. However, Alfred is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Rhode Island seem to particularly fancy this name – the 2,811 men called Alfred who live here are 0,447% of all male residents and push their name up to #52 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Rhode Island. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 222,141 people with the name Alfred. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Alfred on position 161 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top male names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter A is a very popular first letter for boys’ names. That’s because 9.0% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letter J is more common for boys' names.
With six letters, the name Alfred is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 9.0% of all boys' names start with an A, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And by the way: Of all the boys' names that start with an A, Anthony is the most common.
If your name is Alfred and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Alfred, you can simply say:
Apple
Lion
Fox
Rocket
Elephant
Dinosaur
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Alfred
Alfred
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
A
L
F
R
E
D
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
A
L
F
R
E
D
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Alfred sounds like this:
