Ford
- Pronunciation
- [Ford]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- River Crossing
- Origin
- English
About the Name Ford
Ford descends from the Old English ford meaning "river crossing" — referring originally to those who lived near or owned a ford (a shallow river crossing where one could wade across). The name first appears as an English surname referring to those from such places.
The name's overwhelming modern American cultural anchor is the iconic American businessman Henry Ford (using Ford as a surname, 1863–1947, the iconic American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company in 1903 — anchoring the Ford name in American business and automotive history) and US president Gerald Ford (Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr., 1913–2006, the 38th US President 1974–1977 who succeeded Richard Nixon after Watergate). Other notable bearers include American actor Harrison Ford (using Ford as a surname, born 1942, the iconic American actor of Star Wars 1977 and the Indiana Jones series); the contemporary American fictional Ford of various contemporary novels; and the iconic American filmmaker Ford Coppola.
The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 2010s, riding the broader American taste for surname-style first names alongside Hudson, Wells, and Reed. Ford's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the strong Ford Motor Company American business cultural anchor and Harrison Ford Hollywood anchor, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive F-RD consonant rhythm. The name reads as both classical-Anglo-Saxon and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Fordy and Forrie each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Ford and Forde have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Old English ford.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Ford
US Popularity History (2014–2025)
Annual US births named Ford by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2021 with 707 boys named Ford (boy rank #439 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #474 for boys (642 US births). That's 35 places below its 2021 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 Ford 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 Ford the strongest states are Idaho, Utah, Nebraska.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #735 | 159 |
| 2 | New Jersey | #724 | 65 |
| 3 | Maryland | #718 | 50 |
| 4 | Florida | #677 | 194 |
| 5 | Alabama | #649 | 47 |
| 6 | Virginia | #623 | 108 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #614 | 64 |
| 8 | Ohio | #596 | 144 |
| 9 | Wisconsin | #578 | 71 |
| 10 | Washington | #576 | 121 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Ford in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forde | A Shallow Place Used To Cross A River Or Stream. Surname. | Male | English |
Looking for names like Ford?
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 Ford to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Ford 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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