Lydell
A variant form of the English masculine name Lydell, meaning "from the fortified dwellings".
Name Census estimates that about 1,759 living Americans carry the first name Lydell. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Lydell today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lydell births was 1977 (80 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lydell. 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.
People living today
1.8K
~ 1 in 194,857 Americans
Peak year
1977
80 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,595
Tracked since 1928
Census
Lydell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,345 people with the first name Lydell, which placed it at #10,052 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
#10,052
National first-name rank
People counted
1.3K
1,345 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
66.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lydell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lydell is Black at 66.2%. The next largest groups are White (15.6%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (8.8%). 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 Lydell 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 Lydell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American66.2% · 891
- White15.6% · 210
- American Indian and Alaska Native8.8% · 118
- Two or more races3.9% · 53
- Hispanic or Latino3.5% · 47
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 26
Gender
Gender distribution for Lydell
Out of the 1,914 babies given the name Lydell since 1880, 99.5% 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.
Lydell as a male name
- Ranked #8,068 in 2024
- 10 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1977 (80 births)
Lydell as a female name
- Ranked #4,595 in 1936
- 5 female births in 1936
- Peak: 1928 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lydell leans strongly male. 1,281 people counted with this name were male (96.0%), compared with 54 female bearers (4.0%).
Popularity
Lydell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lydell from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 503 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lydell 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 Lydell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lydells live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. New York, Illinois, California recorded the most babies named Lydell, while Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 22 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lydell
The name Lydell is an English variant of the Old English name Lydel, which itself is derived from the Old English word "lyde" meaning "loud" or "noisy." It is believed to have originated in the 7th or 8th century CE among the Anglo-Saxon tribes of what is now England.
The earliest recorded use of the name Lydell dates back to the 11th century, appearing in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a surname. It is likely that the name was initially given as a descriptive nickname for someone with a loud voice or boisterous personality.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Lydell of Taunton, a 12th-century English landowner and minor noble who held lands in Somerset. Another notable figure was Sir Lydell Fairfax, a 14th-century English knight and military commander who fought in the Hundred Years' War against France.
In the 16th century, Lydell Prickett was a renowned English sailor and explorer who accompanied Sir Francis Drake on his circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580. During the English Civil War in the 17th century, Lydell Pynchon was a prominent Puritan settler and magistrate in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, serving as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Moving into the 18th century, Lydell Sawyer was a highly skilled American cabinetmaker and furniture designer who worked in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1760 to 1789. His intricate woodwork and innovative designs were highly sought after by wealthy clients throughout New England.
In more recent times, Lydell Mitchell was an American professional football player who played running back for the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers in the National Football League from 1972 to 1979. He was a key member of the Colts' team that won Super Bowl V in 1971.
People
Lydell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lydell as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lydell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lydell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,759 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lydell 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 194,857 US residents.
Is Lydell a common name?
We classify Lydell as "Rare". It ranks above 93.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,914 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lydell most popular?
The single biggest year for Lydell was 1977, when 80 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lydell is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lydell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,345 people with the name Lydell, or 0.45 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,052 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 Lydell 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 Lydell?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lydell leans strongly male. 1,281 people counted with this name were male (96.0%), compared with 54 female bearers (4.0%). 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 Lydell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lydell is Black at 66.2%. The next largest groups are White (15.6%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (8.8%). 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 Lydell most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Lydell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.2% (891 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 Lydell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lydell a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Lydell 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 Lydell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lydell 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 Lydell 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 Lydell?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.