Name Awesome

Adolf

Boys' name

Noble + wolf

Adolf has been given to 1,394 babies in the U.S. since 1880. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1918, with 56 recorded.

Babies named Adolf, 1990

1 in 790,000

Adolf over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Adolf: meaning, origin, and history

Noble + wolf

Germanic languages and Old High German

What Adolf means

Adolf means “noble + wolf”, associated with adal and wulf.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From Old High German adal (“noble”) + wulf (“wolf”). Doublet of Ethelwolf from Old English Æþelwulf.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Adolf (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Adolf is used in English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Faroese, German, Hungarian and Icelandic and additional language sections. Its origins include Germanic languages and Old High German.

Adolf comes through Old High German adal.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Adolph, Ethelwolf and Æþelwulf.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Czech, Adolf is pronounced [ˈadolf].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,394 boys were recorded with the name Adolf between 1880 and 1990. Its highest annual count was 56 in 1918; its best national rank was #599 in 1891.

How common is Adolf?

Adolf had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1990, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1990
1 in 790,000
5 of 3,949,959 births
Among boys only
1 in 411,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1990
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
547,582 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Adolf sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1990 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 547,582 children born in 1990 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Adolf. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Adolfs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Adolf was born before 1925 — so the typical Adolf is around 100 today.

Median birth year
1925
About 100 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
28.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
6.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
229
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 28.2% of all recorded uses (393).

Is Adolf rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1918 (56)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#599
1891

Spellings of Adolf

Adolf is not the most common spelling — Adolph is, with 36.6% against Adolf's 2.7%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Adolf is used

Across 1910–2025, Adolf was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 205,958 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 100,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 100,000
  3. 3Connecticut1 in —
  4. 4Illinois1 in —
  5. 5Massachusetts1 in —
  6. 6Michigan1 in —
  7. 7New Jersey1 in —
  8. 8Pennsylvania1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Adolf has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Adolf around the world

Where Adolf ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1906–1944
    #776
    in 1944
  • South Australia
    1960–1968
    #520
    in 1968

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Adolf by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#599
1891
Peak year
1918
56 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
1990
All-time count
1,394
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Adolf

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

AdonaiAdonAdonayAdoniAdonnisWolfAdonysRolfAdoreAdoniasAdolfoAdonijahAdonisAdonusAdomAdolinRudolfAdonteAdoreeAdolpheRandolfAdolphoAdolphusAdolph

Sibling names for Adolf

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Adolf

Top names of 1918, Adolf's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1891Boys' names starting with A