Cade
- Pronunciation
- [Cade]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Not recorded
- Origin
- English
Cade is a name traditionally given to a boy of English origin. Our sources do not preserve a single agreed-upon literal translation for this particular name, so we list its meaning as unrecorded rather than guess at one. Browse more English baby names or search the full library by meaning.
About the Name Cade
Cade has multiple proposed origins. The most credible English line connects Cade to the Middle English cade meaning "round" or "bulky" — used as a nickname for stocky men. A separate line connects Cade to a short form of Cadell (a Welsh name meaning "battle") or to a short form of Cadmus (the Greek mythological figure who founded Thebes).
The name has been used as an English surname since the medieval period — including the famous 15th-century English rebel Jack Cade (died 1450), leader of the 1450 popular revolt against the government of King Henry VI of England. The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, riding the broader American taste for short, distinctive surname-style boys' first names alongside Tate and Cole.
Cade's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1995 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. Notable contemporary bearers include American basketball player Cade Cunningham (born 2001, the 2021 NBA #1 overall draft pick); American golfer Cade Bramlet; and various contemporary American athletes. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive C-D consonant rhythm, and the modern visual presence. The name reads as both classical-English and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Cady and Caddy each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Cade and Caid have their own SSA tracking. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially American; the original related English Cade family provides the etymological core.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Cade
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Cade by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2001 with 1,811 boys named Cade (boy rank #201 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #248 for boys (1,392 US births). That's 47 places below its 2001 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Cade Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Cade the strongest states are Hawaii, South Dakota, Maine.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #190 | 48 |
| 2 | South Dakota | #206 | 38 |
| 3 | Maine | #207 | 24 |
| 4 | Iowa | #208 | 175 |
| 5 | North Dakota | #214 | 41 |
| 6 | West Virginia | #219 | 68 |
| 7 | Missouri | #255 | 248 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #259 | 310 |
| 9 | Nebraska | #268 | 94 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #282 | 161 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #632 | 225 |
| 2 | New Jersey | #598 | 85 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #484 | 91 |
| 4 | California | #478 | 633 |
| 5 | Illinois | #444 | 227 |
| 6 | Oregon | #409 | 89 |
| 7 | Florida | #397 | 426 |
| 8 | Maryland | #391 | 122 |
| 9 | Arkansas | #388 | 86 |
| 10 | Texas | #385 | 817 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Cade in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kade | From The Wetlands. | Male | Scottish |
Looking for names like Cade?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Cade to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Cade against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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