Ada
Meaning
noble, nobility
Famously borne by Ada Blackjack, the Inupiat seamstress who survived alone on Wrangel Island after her expedition fell apart. Famously borne by first women's Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg.
The story
Ada is the old Germanic root for noble, and the ledger has watched it complete a full circle. A century ago it was a giant, more than 15,000 girls a decade in the 1910s and 1920s; by the 1990s it had thinned to 1,600, resting. The return is emphatic: about 3,400 in the 2000s, 9,000 in the 2010s, and already 9,500 so far this decade, past the full 2010s with years to run. Its most magnetic bearer is Ada Lovelace, who wrote what is widely called the first computer program in the 1840s, and whose name now travels with programming itself. The revival also rides the cluster Ada seeded: Adalynn, Adalyn and Adeline all carry her inside them, and our records list Ada as their classic short form. In our records Ada goes to girls about 98,500 to 250, and this decade entirely, 9,495 to zero. The shortest names keep the longest ledgers.
The formal names behind Ada
Ada is an established short form of each of these names.
Adelaide · Germanic origin · noble kind
Adeline · French origin · noble
Adalynn · Germanic origin · modern elaboration of Ada, traditionally "noble"
Adaline · Germanic origin · variant of Adeline, "noble"
Ada around the world
One shared root links 21 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: a Germanic family built on adal "noble": Adalheidis "of noble kind" wore down through Old French Aalis into Alice and a crowd of descendants
The constellation
14 more branches of this family
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Ada peaked in the 1890s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
5,565 people · the #2,553 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 37,037 · median age 39
The census also counted 539 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Ada
People given the name Ada in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 2025. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Ada deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Ada truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Ada fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Ada travels
Italian Brazilian · noble, of noble kind (short form of Adelaide); kept among older-generation Italian-Brazilian families, now revived elsewhere too
Turkish · island (also the Western revival name tied to Ada Lovelace)
Igbo · first, eldest daughter
Keep exploring
Names like Ada · Italian Brazilian baby names · Turkish baby names · Igbo baby names · Short names
Does Ada fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Ada to your family’s tree →