Aristides
Meaning
of the best kind, from Greek aristos (best); the Athenian his city called the Just, and a formal name behind Aris
Goes by Aris
The story
Aristides is the name of one of the most admired figures of ancient Athens, a statesman and general so consistently fair that his own city called him the Just. The name is built on the Greek aristos, best, the same root inside aristocracy and inside the short form Aris. Plutarch tells a famous story: at an ostracism vote, an illiterate citizen who did not recognize him asked Aristides himself to scratch the name Aristides onto the shard, saying only that he was tired of hearing the man called the Just. Aristides wrote it without complaint, and was exiled. As an American name it is very rare, with no popularity curve in the US records. Its living short form is Aris, which most people meet long before they meet the statesman.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Aristides does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
Naming a baby, or reading about your own name?
This page serves both. The meaning above is the honest one, not the flattering one, and the curve is every Aristides born in America since 1890. The deep dive below is a letter about the name itself: written for the family weighing it, and just as well for the person who has carried it all along.
The Aristides deep dive
A personal letter, not a list: where Aristides truly comes from, how it traveled, its century in real records, and, if you have grown a tree on nametree, exactly how it reads against your family and your last name. Add a note and it is not just quoted back at you: it changes the texture of the analysis, what the letter weighs, what it examines, what it argues with.
Our own matching engine and algorithms, built for one thing: how names fit a family. On top of that, 8,500 verified names, 130 years of real records, and frontier AI. A chatbot may or may not get a meaning right; what it cannot do is any of the rest.
Keep exploring
Does Aristides fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Aristides to your family’s tree →