Floyd
An Old English name meaning "gray-haired" or "gray meadow".
Name Census estimates that about 53,400 living Americans carry the first name Floyd. It is a predominantly male name (99.1% of registrations). The average person named Floyd today is around 67 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Floyd births was 1926 (3,662 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Floyd. 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 Floyd with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Floyd is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 1,377 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Floyd is about 67 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Floyds were born before 1969.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Floyd have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
53K
~ 1 in 6,419 Americans
Peak year
1926
3,662 babies that year
Average age
67
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,169
Tracked since 1880
Census
Floyd in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 48,521 people with the first name Floyd, which placed it at #924 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
#924
National first-name rank
People counted
49K
48,521 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
16.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Floyd
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Floyd is White at 68.7%. The next largest groups are Black (23.5%) and Two or More Races (3.0%). 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 Floyd 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 Floyd at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.7% · 33,358
- Black or African American23.5% · 11,423
- Two or more races3.0% · 1,445
- Hispanic or Latino2.4% · 1,176
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 748
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 371
Gender
Gender distribution for Floyd
Out of the 155,680 babies given the name Floyd since 1880, 99.1% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Floyd as a male name
- Ranked #2,169 in 2024
- 67 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1926 (3,623 births)
Floyd as a female name
- Ranked #13,993 in 1992
- 5 female births in 1992
- Peak: 1922 (43 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Floyd appears almost entirely male. Of the 48,533 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Floyd: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Floyd 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 33,490 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
Floyd 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 Floyd during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Floyds live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, Ohio, Illinois recorded the most babies named Floyd, while Nevada, Alaska, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,788 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Floyd
The name Floyd is an English given name derived from an Old English surname that referred to someone who lived near a stream or floodplain. It is thought to have originated from the Old English word "flod," meaning "flood" or "stream."
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Floyd dates back to the Domesday Book, a comprehensive record of landowners commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The name appears as "Flode," which was likely a nickname for someone living near a body of water.
Throughout history, the name Floyd has been borne by several notable individuals. One of the earliest was Floyd Nolan (c. 1395-1468), an English nobleman and military commander who fought in the Hundred Years' War. Another early bearer of the name was Floyd Vaughan (c. 1560-1597), a Welsh politician and member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
In the 19th century, the name gained popularity in the United States. One of the most famous individuals with the name was Floyd Mayweather Sr. (born 1952), an American professional boxer and the father of the legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. Another notable Floyd was Floyd Cramer (1933-1997), an American pianist and musician best known for his hit song "Last Date."
The name also has ties to the world of literature. One of the most famous literary figures named Floyd was Floyd Dell (1887-1969), an American novelist, playwright, and journalist who was a leading figure in the Chicago Renaissance literary movement.
In the realm of science and technology, Floyd Ratliff (1919-1998) was an American neurophysiologist known for his research on the visual system and the Ratliff equation, which describes the response of retinal neurons to light.
These are just a few examples of notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Floyd, a name with a rich heritage and a unique connection to the natural world.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Floyd
People
Floyd + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Floyd as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with F
Other first names starting with F with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Floyd: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Floyd?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 53,400 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Floyd 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 6,419 US residents.
Is Floyd a common name?
We classify Floyd as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 155,680 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Floyd most popular?
The single biggest year for Floyd was 1926, when 3,662 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Floyd 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 Floyd in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 48,521 people with the name Floyd, or 16.06 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #924 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 Floyd 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 Floyd?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Floyd appears almost entirely male. Of the 48,533 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Floyd?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Floyd is White at 68.7%. The next largest groups are Black (23.5%) and Two or More Races (3.0%). 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 Floyd most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Floyd in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.7% (33,358 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 Floyd in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Floyd a male name?
Yes, 99.1% of people registered as Floyd 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 Floyd still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Floyd 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 Floyd 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 the name Floyd?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.