Claude
A masculine name of French origin meaning "lame" or "enclosure".
Name Census estimates that about 31,517 living Americans carry the first name Claude. It is a predominantly male name (99.0% of registrations). The average person named Claude today is around 67 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Claude births was 1920 (1,910 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Claude. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Claude with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Claude is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 952 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Claude is about 67 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Claudes were born before 1969.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Claude have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
32K
~ 1 in 10,875 Americans
Peak year
1920
1,910 babies that year
Average age
67
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,332
Tracked since 1880
Census
Claude in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 33,427 people with the first name Claude, which placed it at #1,178 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,178
National first-name rank
People counted
33K
33,427 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
11.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
66.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Claude
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Claude is White at 66.3%. The next largest groups are Black (27.1%) and Two or More Races (2.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Claude described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Claude at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White66.3% · 22,163
- Black or African American27.1% · 9,054
- Two or more races2.8% · 923
- Hispanic or Latino2.3% · 764
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 262
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 261
Gender
Gender distribution for Claude
Claude leans heavily male at 99.0% of total registrations, but 952 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Claude as a male name
- Ranked #3,332 in 2024
- 35 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (1,893 births)
Claude as a female name
- Ranked #13,917 in 1993
- 5 female births in 1993
- Peak: 1929 (26 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Claude leans strongly male. 32,720 people counted with this name were male (97.9%), compared with 709 female bearers (2.1%).
Popularity
Claude: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Claude from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 17,190 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Claude by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Claude during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Claudes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 48 states and territories. Texas, North Carolina, Virginia recorded the most babies named Claude, while Delaware, Wyoming, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,595 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Claude
The name Claude has its origins in the Roman clan name Claudius, which was derived from the Latin word claudus, meaning "lame" or "crippled." This suggests that the name may have originally been a nickname or personal characteristic descriptor.
The Claudii were an influential family in ancient Rome, with several notable members bearing this name. One of the most famous was the Roman emperor Claudius, who ruled from 41 to 54 AD. He was known for his scholarly pursuits and for extending Roman citizenship to many inhabitants of the empire.
The name Claude gained popularity across Europe during the Middle Ages, particularly in France, where it was sometimes spelled as Clodius or Clodoveus. It was often associated with the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings, including Clovis I, who reigned from 481 to 511 AD and is credited with converting to Christianity and unifying the Franks.
In the 12th century, the French theologian and philosopher Claude of Turin gained recognition for his criticism of religious art and his advocacy for a more literal interpretation of the Bible. Another notable figure was Claude de France, a French princess who lived from 1499 to 1524 and was the wife of Francis I, King of France.
During the Renaissance, the name Claude was borne by several influential artists and writers. Claude Lorrain, a French painter born in 1600, was renowned for his landscape paintings and is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the Baroque classical landscape tradition.
Another famous Claude was the French playwright and actor Claude Molière, whose full name was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière (1622-1673). He is regarded as one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature and is known for plays such as "Tartuffe" and "The Misanthrope."
In the 18th century, the French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) became one of the most influential figures in Western music, known for his innovative use of harmony and his works such as "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and "La Mer."
The name Claude has also been borne by several notable scientists and intellectuals, including the French philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), who made significant contributions to anthropology and the study of structuralism.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Claude
People
Claude + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Claude as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Claude: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Claude?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 31,517 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Claude going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 10,875 US residents.
Is Claude a common name?
We classify Claude as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 92,252 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Claude most popular?
The single biggest year for Claude was 1920, when 1,910 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Claude is about 67 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Claude in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 33,427 people with the name Claude, or 11.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,178 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Claude in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Claude?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Claude leans strongly male. 32,720 people counted with this name were male (97.9%), compared with 709 female bearers (2.1%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Claude?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Claude is White at 66.3%. The next largest groups are Black (27.1%) and Two or More Races (2.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Claude most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Claude in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.3% (22,163 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Claude in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Claude a male name?
Yes, 99.0% of people registered as Claude in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Claude still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Claude in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Claude can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Claude as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.