Cadence: Meaning of Baby Name Cadence

About the Name Cadence

Cadence descends from the Latin cadentia, ultimately from cadere (to fall) — referring originally to the rhythmic falling of voice tones in speech and music. The English word "cadence" has been used continuously to refer to the rhythmic flow of music, poetry, and speech, and to specific musical-theory progressions of chords that resolve a phrase.

The name's transition from word to American first name accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, riding the broader American taste for music/word-names alongside Lyric, Melody, and Harmony. Notable contemporary bearers include American basketball player Cadence Wynne; the contemporary fictional Cadence of various contemporary novels; and various contemporary American singer-songwriters.

Cadence has been used predominantly for girls in modern American naming, though it has occasional boys' usage. Cadence's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built music/poetry word-register, the modern visual presence as a one-word concept name, and the popular two-syllable -ence ending family (Cadence, Florence, Patience, Prudence). Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to word-derived names. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames Cady (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Cade (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name on its own), and the rare Den each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Cadence, Kadence, and Caydence have their own SSA tracking. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially modern American; the original Latin cadentia remains the etymological source.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Cadence

1,414

French baby names in our dictionary

843

French female names

384

7-letter C-names in our dictionary

721

C-female names total

2002–2023

years of US SSA records (22 total)

21,297

total US births named Cadence (all years)

US Popularity History (2002–2023)

📉 Falling fast: Cadence dropped 463 places in the US girls ranking over the last 5 years (#488 in 2018 → #951 in 2023).

Annual US births named Cadence by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 1,707 girls named Cadence (girl rank #199 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2023, ranked #951 for girls (275 US births). That's 752 places below its 2007 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.

Where in the US Is Cadence Most Popular?

Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Cadence the strongest states are Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Idaho	#335	30
2	Mississippi	#371	34
3	Nevada	#409	29
4	Arkansas	#436	36
5	Oklahoma	#470	58
6	Kansas	#481	34
7	Connecticut	#482	18
8	Maryland	#482	104
9	Iowa	#484	36
10	Tennessee	#492	159

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	New York	#806	141
2	Illinois	#757	139
3	Texas	#745	380
4	Florida	#745	219
5	Michigan	#728	100
6	Ohio	#692	153
7	California	#670	409
8	Wisconsin	#670	62
9	Arizona	#656	76
10	New Jersey	#653	84

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Cadence in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Cadena	Rhythmic	Female	English
Cadencia	Rhythmic	Female	French
Cadenza	Rhythmic	Female	Italian
Cady	Hillock. A Surname Or Given Name Meaning A Rhythmic Flow Of Sounds.	Female	English
Kadence	Rhythmic	Female	Latin
Kaydence	Musical.	Female	American

Looking for names like Cadence?

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Compare Cadence to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Cadence against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Cadence vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Cadence vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Cadence vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Cadence vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Cadence vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Cadence vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Cadence vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Cadence vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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