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Garfield

#12,647 in 2025Boys' name

Spear + field

Garfield has been given to 5,566 babies in the U.S. since 1880. In 2025 it ranked #12,647 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1881, with 147 recorded.

Babies named Garfield, 2025

1 in 663,000

Garfield over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Garfield: meaning, origin, and history

Spear + field

surname transfer

What Garfield means

Garfield means “spear + field”, associated with gār and feld.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Also Garfeld, from Old English gār (“spear”) + feld (“field”).

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

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Garfield is used in English. Its origins include surname transfer.

Garfield comes through Old English gar.

Garfield is recorded as a surname transferred into given-name use.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Garfield is pronounced /ˈɡɑɹfild/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 5,566 boys were recorded with the name Garfield between 1880 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 147 in 1881; its best national rank was #88 in 1881.

Over 10 years its rank fell, from #9,015 in 2015 to #12,647 in 2025.

How common is Garfield?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 342,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#12,647
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
459,581 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Garfield 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 2025 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 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Garfield. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Garfields were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Garfield was born before 1929 — so the typical Garfield is around 96 today.

Median birth year
1929
About 96 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
16.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,523
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 16.7% of all recorded uses (932).

Is Garfield 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
−3,632
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.63×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
3.4%
Peak was 1881 (147)
Years since peak
144
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
20.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#88
1881

Spellings of Garfield

Garfield is the most-used spelling, taking 66.9% of the 8,314 babies given a near-identical spelling.

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 Garfield is used

Across 1910–2025, Garfield was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in 16,667 boys, against 1 in 77,178 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

06 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1North Carolina1 in 16,667
  2. 2Virginia1 in 16,667
  3. 3Mississippi1 in 20,000
  4. 4Georgia1 in 25,000
  5. 5South Carolina1 in 25,000
  6. 6Alabama1 in 50,000
  7. 7Tennessee1 in 50,000
  8. 8Kentucky1 in 100,000

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. Garfield has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Garfield around the world

Where Garfield 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.

  • South Australia
    1944–1966
    #536
    in 1966

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Garfield

People whose public names include Garfield, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Garfield in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Garfield. Linked forms have their own page here.

Gar

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Garfield by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#12,647
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#88
1881
Peak year
1881
147 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
5,566
Count in 2025
5

Names similar to Garfield

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

GarrisonGarrickGarnettWinfieldGardnerGarettGarethGareldGarlandGarretGarnerGarnetGarrenGarthGaroldGarvinRayfieldGarenGarrettGarionGarretteMaxfieldGarryGarreth

Names with a curve like Garfield

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Garfield, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

WinfieldClemColumbusMoseGeneralGranvilleNewtonEddOraDewittWebsterAdolphus

Sibling names for Garfield

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 Garfield

Top names of 1881, Garfield's peak yearThe 1880s in fullOther names that peaked in 1881More old man namesBoys' names starting with G