Bradley was originally a surname meaning ‘broad meadow’. It is composed from the Olde English words ‘brad’ and ‘leah’.
Bradley is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The name Bradley 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, Bradley ranks 212. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 10 were named Bradley. In the entire USA, approximately 307,242 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Bradley. That is 0.09 % of all living Americans.
Bradley was originally a surname meaning ‘broad meadow’. It is composed from the Olde English words ‘brad’ and ‘leah’.
What is a meadow? A meadow is a type of grassland that is characterized by its lush, green grass and wildflowers. Meadows are typically found in low-lying areas, such as valleys or near rivers and streams.
#47 - this is the highest position Bradley has ever reached. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of records. The last time Bradley reached this top spot at the end of the past century in 1979 when 6,963newborn boys were named Bradley. But as our statistics show, Bradley hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1892, it was given to newborns not at all or at least less than 5 times (a name is only included in the official statistics only if it is given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Bradley has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well in our modern times. From zero to hero – even if its peak is in the past, Bradley has become a fashionable name after all.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Bradley was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, 1,012 newborn boys were given the name Bradley, making this first name #323. Towards the end of the last century, the name had a real flight of fancy and still captivates many people today − just like the music of the 80s. So, the chances to meet a young Bradley are still quite high.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Bradley is one of them. However, Bradley is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Minnesota seem to particularly fancy this name – the 11,669 men called Bradley who live here are 0,383% of all male residents and push their name up to #62 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Minnesota. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 307,242 people with the name Bradley. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Bradley on position 103 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 B is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for boys' names: 4.2% of all common boys' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of boys' names are J and A, while X and U are the least common initials of boys' names.
With seven letters, the name Bradley has a typical length for first names in the US. In fact, 26% of all common first names consist of exactly seven letters. 52% of all first names are shorter, while 22% have eight 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.
Thus, it follows that if 4.2% of all boys' names start with a B, this initial letter occurs about as often as all 26 letters on average. And maybe interesting to know: Brian is the boys’ name starting with B, which is the most common of all.
If your name is Bradley 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 Bradley, you can simply say:
Butterfly
Rocket
Apple
Dinosaur
Lion
Elephant
Yoyo
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Bradley
Bradley
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
B
R
A
D
L
E
Y
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.
B
R
A
D
L
E
Y
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. Bradley sounds like this:
