Aiden
Meaning
"little fire," the anglicized Aodhan, a diminutive of Aodh, the old Celtic god of fire; a seventh-century Irish saint's name that America respelled and turned into the sound of a generation, the -aden wave of the 2000s
The story
Aiden is America's spelling of the Irish Aodhan, a diminutive of Aodh, the old Celtic god of fire, so the name reads as little fire. Saint Aidan, the seventh-century Irish monk who founded the great monastery at Lindisfarne, gave it holy weight, and for thirteen centuries it stayed mostly Irish. Then American television found it: the character Aidan Shaw arrived on Sex and the City in 2000, and the respelled Aiden shot up the charts in the years right after; we cannot prove the show did it, but the timing is hard to ignore. The name became the sound of a generation, dragging a whole rhyming wave of imitators behind it, and peaked in the 2010s before falling back sharply, the usual fate of a name that burns that bright, that fast. The little fire, true to its meaning, ran hot.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Aiden peaked in the 2010s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
45 people · the #71,575 first name in Brazil · median age 6
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Aiden
Most people given the name Aiden in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Aiden deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Aiden 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 Aiden fits with your family’s names and surname.
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