Reid
A masculine name of Scottish origin meaning "red".
Name Census estimates that about 37,353 living Americans carry the first name Reid. It sits at #300 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (97.6% of registrations). The average person named Reid today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Reid births was 2014 (1,464 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Reid. 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 Reid with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Reid is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 958 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
37K
~ 1 in 9,176 Americans
Peak year
2014
1,464 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#300
Tracked since 1886
Census
Reid in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 31,670 people with the first name Reid, which placed it at #1,215 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
#1,215
National first-name rank
People counted
32K
31,670 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
10.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
89.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Reid
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Reid is White at 89.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (3.8%) and Hispanic (3.2%). 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 Reid 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 Reid at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White89.0% · 28,189
- Two or more races3.8% · 1,191
- Hispanic or Latino3.2% · 1,008
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 678
- Black or African American1.5% · 469
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 135
Gender
Gender distribution for Reid
Reid leans heavily male at 97.6% of total registrations, but 958 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Reid as a male name
- Ranked #300 in 2024
- 1,118 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (1,432 births)
Reid as a female name
- Ranked #4,530 in 2024
- 31 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (43 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Reid leans strongly male. 30,802 people counted with this name were male (97.2%), compared with 873 female bearers (2.8%).
Popularity
Reid: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Reid from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 12,992 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Reid remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Reid 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 Reid during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Reids live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Reid, while New Mexico, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 695 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Reid
The name Reid has its origins in the Scottish Gaelic language, deriving from the word "rìgh" which means "king" or "sovereign." It is believed to have emerged as a given name during the medieval period, particularly in Scotland and Northern England.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Reid is found in the Ragman Rolls, a series of historical documents from the late 13th and early 14th centuries. These rolls contain the names of Scottish nobles and landowners who swore allegiance to King Edward I of England during the Wars of Scottish Independence.
In the 16th century, the name Reid gained prominence through the influential Reid family, who were prominent lairds (landowners) in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. One notable figure from this family was Robert Reid, born in 1510, who served as the Bishop of Orkney and played a significant role in the Scottish Reformation.
Another famous bearer of the name was Thomas Reid, a renowned Scottish philosopher born in 1710. He is considered one of the founders of the Scottish School of Common Sense and made significant contributions to the field of epistemology (theory of knowledge).
Moving forward in history, Whitelaw Reid, born in 1837, was an American diplomat and journalist who served as the ambassador to France and later became the editor of the New York Tribune newspaper.
In the realm of sports, Richie Reid, born in 1904, was a Scottish footballer who played as a forward for Rangers and the Scottish national team in the 1920s and 1930s, earning recognition as one of Scotland's greatest players.
More recently, Richard Reid, known as the "Shoe Bomber," gained notoriety in 2001 for his failed attempt to detonate explosives concealed in his shoes on a transatlantic flight from Paris to Miami.
While the name Reid has its roots in Scottish heritage, it has since been adopted and used across various cultures and regions, particularly in English-speaking countries. Its association with royalty and nobility in its early history has contributed to its enduring appeal as a given name.
People
Reid + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Reid as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Reid: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Reid?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 37,353 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Reid 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 9,176 US residents.
Is Reid a common name?
We classify Reid as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 40,596 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Reid most popular?
The single biggest year for Reid was 2014, when 1,464 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Reid is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Reid in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 31,670 people with the name Reid, or 10.49 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,215 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 Reid 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 Reid?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Reid leans strongly male. 30,802 people counted with this name were male (97.2%), compared with 873 female bearers (2.8%). 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 Reid?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Reid is White at 89.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (3.8%) and Hispanic (3.2%). 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 Reid most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Reid in the 2020 Census, accounting for 89.0% (28,189 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 Reid in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Reid a male name?
Yes, 97.6% of people registered as Reid 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 Reid still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Reid 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 Reid 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 share the name Reid?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.