Taft
From Old English meaning "pleasant meadow" or "homestead".
Name Census estimates that about 885 living Americans carry the first name Taft. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Taft today is around 44 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Taft births was 1908 (62 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Taft. 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
885
~ 1 in 387,293 Americans
Peak year
1908
62 babies that year
Average age
44
years old
2024 SSA rank
#9,727
Tracked since 1907
Census
Taft in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 749 people with the first name Taft, which placed it at #15,378 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
#15,378
National first-name rank
People counted
749
749 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
57.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Taft
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Taft is White at 57.9%. The next largest groups are Black (32.4%) and Two or More Races (4.4%). 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 Taft 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 Taft at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White57.9% · 434
- Black or African American32.4% · 243
- Two or more races4.4% · 33
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 15
- Hispanic or Latino1.9% · 14
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 10
Popularity
Taft: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Taft from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 192 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1910s peak, Taft remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Taft 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 Taft during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Tafts live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Utah, North Carolina, Texas recorded the most babies named Taft, while Tennessee, New York, Alabama recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 16 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Taft
The name Taft is believed to have originated from Old English, derived from the word "toft," which referred to a homestead or a small plot of land. This name can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period in England, around the 5th to 11th centuries.
During the Middle Ages, the name Taft was primarily used as a surname in England, often indicating a person's connection to a particular piece of land or homestead. It was not uncommon for surnames to later become adopted as given names, and this may have been the case with Taft.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Taft can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of land ownership in England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. In this document, there are references to individuals with the surname Taft or similar spellings, such as Toft.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Taft as their first name. One of the most prominent figures was William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, born in 1857 and died in 1930. He was also the 10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from 1921 to 1930.
Another historical figure with the name Taft was Howard Taft, an American lawyer and politician who served as the 32nd Governor of Rhode Island from 1888 to 1889. He was born in 1862 and died in 1925.
In the literary world, Taft Armistead was an American writer and poet, best known for his collection of poems titled "The Quietist." He was born in 1864 and died in 1939.
Taft Reed was an American baseball player who played in the Major League Baseball from 1910 to 1920. He was born in 1888 and died in 1949.
Taft Young was a British actor and director, active in the early 20th century. He was born in 1885 and died in 1936.
While the name Taft may have its roots in Old English and was initially used as a surname, it has since been adopted as a given name and has been borne by several notable individuals throughout history, spanning various fields such as politics, literature, sports, and the arts.
People
Taft + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Taft as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Taft: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Taft?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 885 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Taft 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 387,293 US residents.
Is Taft a common name?
We classify Taft as "Very Rare". It ranks above 89.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,534 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Taft most popular?
The single biggest year for Taft was 1908, when 62 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Taft is about 44 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Taft in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 749 people with the name Taft, or 0.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #15,378 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 Taft 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 Taft?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Taft leans strongly male. 734 people counted with this name were male (97.9%), compared with 16 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 Taft?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Taft is White at 57.9%. The next largest groups are Black (32.4%) and Two or More Races (4.4%). 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 Taft most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Taft in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.9% (434 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 Taft in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Taft a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Taft 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 Taft still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Taft 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 Taft 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 are named Taft?
Find out how many people have the name Taft on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.