The first name Richard means ‘strong ruler’. This meaning results from the Old High German word parts ‘rīhhi’ for ‘ruler’ and ‘harti’ for ‘strong, powerful’ contained in the name.
Richard is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The name Richard 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, Richard ranks 160. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 13 were named Richard. In total, there are currently 2,537,337 people – children, adults and seniors – named Richard living in the United States, which is approximately 0.76 % of the entire population.
The first name Richard means ‘strong ruler’. This meaning results from the Old High German word parts ‘rīhhi’ for ‘ruler’ and ‘harti’ for ‘strong, powerful’ contained in the name.
Richard was a very popular name... for kings and rulers. A prominent example is Richard I of England, who reigned from 1189 until his death in 1199 and is commonly known as Richard the Lionheart.
History tends to focus on the most famous and the best. But even those who play second fiddle leave their mark: Richard is one of those names without which the orchestra would be incomplete. In fact, the SmartGenius top ranking #5 has been hit more than once, although the last instance was some time ago, way back in the last century in 1947. But even though the peak of its popularity was many decades ago, the name Richard has been given to newborn boys every year since records began. Richard is a name of exceptional enduring popularity, conveying the special vibes of the 20th century.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Richard was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
Richard is one of the most common names in the U.S. – in all states combined, 2,537,337 people would currently turn around if you called out RICHARD really loud. Across all states and age groups, this lands Richard on position 8 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. With so many people named Richard, it’s no surprise that the name is widely used in every single state in the U.S., but would you have guessed that Richard is especially popular in Maine? Here, 2,68% of all male residents bear the name Richard – that is a total of 19,906 men with this popular name and no other state has as many men named Richard relative to its population. But that’s not all the popularity: In Maine Richard even belongs to the top 10 of all male names – the 19,906 men called Richardelevate their name up to place #4 in the SmartGenius ranking of the most common male names for Maine.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter R is quite common as an initial letter for boys’ names. To be precise, 5.2% of all boys' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of boys' names, by the way, are J, A and D.
With seven letters, the name Richard 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.
Therefore: As 5.2% of all boys' names start with R, this initial letter occurs much more often than all 26 letters on average. And maybe interesting to know: of all the names that begin with an R, Robert is the most common.
If your name is Richard 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 Richard, you can simply say:
Rocket
Igloo
Cat
Hat
Apple
Rocket
Dinosaur
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Richard
Richard
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
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.
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. Richard sounds like this: