Camden
- Pronunciation
- [Cam-den]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- From The Winding Valley
- Origin
- Anglo
About the Name Camden
Camden is an English place-name and surname meaning "enclosed valley" — possibly from Old English camp (enclosed land) plus denu (valley), or alternatively from a Brittonic Celtic root meaning "crooked valley." The name's most prominent geographic anchors are Camden Town (a district of inner-north London known for its market and music venues), Camden, New Jersey (the American industrial city across the Delaware from Philadelphia), and the historic Camden, England (in Gloucestershire).
The single most influential historical bearer of the surname is William Camden (1551–1623), the English antiquarian and historian whose Britannia (1586) was the first comprehensive topographical survey of Britain and one of the foundational works of English historical scholarship. American bearers include 19th-century American writer Camden Black; civil-rights leader Camden James; and the contemporary American actor Camden Toy.
The transition from place-name and surname to American first name is essentially a 21st-century phenomenon, part of the broader surname-as-given-name trend alongside Hudson, Mason, and Jackson. Camden climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 100 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 100 since. The name has been used increasingly for both boys and girls, though it remains predominantly male in SSA tracking. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the popular -den ending family, and the in-built geographical-American register. Two firm syllables, hard consonants, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. Common nicknames Cam (the dominant short form, gender-neutral) and the rare Den each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Camdyn and Kamden have their own SSA tracking. There are no significant international variants since the name's first-name use is essentially English-American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Camden
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Camden by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2013 with 3,897 boys named Camden (boy rank #99 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #205 for boys (1,722 US births). That's 106 places below its 2013 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 Camden 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 Camden the strongest states are Vermont, Maryland, New Hampshire.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #65 | 54 |
| 2 | Maryland | #86 | 687 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | #88 | 140 |
| 4 | Maine | #92 | 139 |
| 5 | Nebraska | #109 | 231 |
| 6 | North Dakota | #111 | 112 |
| 7 | Ohio | #115 | 1,155 |
| 8 | Virginia | #115 | 782 |
| 9 | Iowa | #116 | 332 |
| 10 | Montana | #119 | 72 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #545 | 91 |
| 2 | Nevada | #322 | 96 |
| 3 | California | #287 | 1,304 |
| 4 | Texas | #259 | 1,429 |
| 5 | New York | #250 | 761 |
| 6 | District of Columbia | #215 | 22 |
| 7 | Arizona | #215 | 372 |
| 8 | New Mexico | #210 | 59 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #202 | 273 |
| 10 | Oregon | #190 | 220 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Camden in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camdin | From The Winding Valley | Male | Scottish |
Looking for names like Camden?
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 Camden to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Camden against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).