Reid
Meaning
surname, "red-haired"
Famously borne by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.
The story
Reid is Scottish for the red-haired, a color surname like the hill and meadow names around it, and its American record is the patient one-syllable build: under 900 a decade into the 1940s, a midcentury presence near 1,800, then the steady climb, about 2,900 in the 1980s, 5,000, 6,700, and 13,000 in the 2010s, with 6,700 so far this decade. It sits in the crisp one-syllable squad these batches have assembled, Tate, Cade, Colt, names that sound like signatures, and it shares their trajectory: chosen increasingly by families who want a full name that no one will ever shorten. In our records it goes to boys about 40,800 to 990. The red hair in the etymology is optional equipment; the four letters and the clean stop at the end are the actual product, and the record says the product sells.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Reid peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
The Reid deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Reid 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 Reid fits with your family’s names and surname.
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Names like Reid · Names of founders and builders · Short names
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