Name Awesome

Valda

Girls' name

To rule

Valda has been given to 1,866 babies in the U.S. since 1897. 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 1957, with 62 recorded.

Babies named Valda, 1982

1 in 585,000

Valda over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Valda: meaning, origin, and history

To rule

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Valda means

Valda means “to rule”, associated with valdīt.

Origin, language, and formation

Valda is used in Estonian and Latvian.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Valter and Valdis.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,866 girls were recorded with the name Valda between 1897 and 1982. Its highest annual count was 62 in 1957; its best national rank was #1,098 in 1916.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Valda?

Valda had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1982, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1982
1 in 585,000
6 of 3,507,638 births
Among girls only
1 in 282,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1982
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
405,219 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Valda sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1982 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 405,219 children born in 1982 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Valda. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Valdas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Valda was born before 1937 — so the typical Valda is around 88 today.

Median birth year
1937
About 88 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
21.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
19.5%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
673
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 21.5% of all recorded uses (402).

Is Valda 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 1957 (62)
Years since peak
68
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
28.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,098
1916

Spellings of Valda

Valda is not the most common spelling — Wanda is, with 21.5% against Valda's 0.14%.

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 Valda is used

Across 1910–2025, Valda was most concentrated in Nebraska — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 380,697 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Nebraska1 in 100,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 100,000
  3. 3California1 in —
  4. 4Illinois1 in —
  5. 5Michigan1 in —
  6. 6Ohio1 in —
  7. 7Oklahoma1 in —
  8. 8Pennsylvania1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Valda has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Valda around the world

Where Valda 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
    1921–1925
    #1,378
    in 1925
  • South Australia
    1944–1976
    #645
    in 1976

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.

Valda by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,098
1916
Peak year
1957
62 that year
First recorded
1897
Last recorded
1982
All-time count
1,866
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Valda

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

ValeriValliValenValeraTildaVallieValleyValenaValynValoraValorValeryValeskaValleryValeValoryGoldaValkyrieValrieMeldaValeneValValmaValorie

Sibling names for Valda

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 Valda

Top names of 1957, Valda's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1916Girls' names starting with V