Pelham
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Pelham has been given to 123 babies in the U.S. since 1912. 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 1917, with 9 recorded.
Babies named Pelham, 1973
1 in 603,000
Pelham over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Pelham?
Pelham had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1973, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1973
- 1 in 603,000
- 5 of 3,016,706 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 312,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1973
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 418,205 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Pelham sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1973 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 418,205 children born in 1973 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Pelham. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Pelhams were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Pelham was born before 1926 — so the typical Pelham is around 99 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 30.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 17.9%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 22
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 30.9% of all recorded uses (38).
Is Pelham 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 1917 (9)
- Years since peak
- 108
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 21.7% average annual change
Spellings of Pelham
Pelham is not the most common spelling — Eliam is, with 59.2% against Pelham's 1.6%.
Where Pelham is used
Across 1910–2025, Pelham was most concentrated in Alabama — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 630,130 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1Alabama1 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. Pelham has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Pelham around the world
Where Pelham 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.
- England & Wales1996–2009#4,527in 2009
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.
Pelham by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Pelham
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Pelham
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.