Alfred
The story
Alfred is pure Old English: aelf, elf, and raed, counsel, so the name means elf counsel, wise advice from the hidden world. It is one of the few Anglo-Saxon names that never needed rescuing, because Alfred the Great, the ninth-century king who saved Wessex and taught England to read, kept it alive for a thousand years. The Victorians wore it proudly, from Alfred, Lord Tennyson to Alfred Nobel, and American parents of the early twentieth century agreed: the name held a solid, respectable place through the 1920s, its strongest era in the records. Since midcentury it has settled onto a low, steady shelf, never gone and rarely showy, with Alfred Hitchcock and Batman's unflappable butler keeping it in the cultural air. It waits there still, a name whose oldest and greatest bearer remains its best argument.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Alfred peaked in the 1920s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
498 people · the #13,419 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 500,000 · median age 36
Among people named Alfred living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 21 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Alfred
People given the name Alfred in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1940 to 1989. 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 Alfred deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Alfred 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 Alfred fits with your family’s names and surname.
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