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Waldemar

#13,786 in 2025Boys' name

Rule, govern, through Waldemar

Waldemar has been given to 1,510 babies in the U.S. since 1891. In 2025 it ranked #13,786 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1915, with 50 recorded.

Babies named Waldemar, 2025

1 in 663,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Waldemar: meaning, origin, and history

Rule, govern, through Waldemar

Germanic languages and Old High German

What Waldemar means

Waldemar belongs to the name family reached through Waldemar → Waldemar. Its meaning is “rule, govern”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Borrowed from German Waldemar in the 19th century.

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

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Waldemar is used in English, German, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish. Its origins include Germanic languages and Old High German.

Waldemar comes through German Waldemar.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Valdemar, Włodzimierz and Waldemar.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Polish, Waldemar is pronounced /valˈdɛ.mar/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,510 boys were recorded with the name Waldemar between 1891 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 50 in 1915; its best national rank was #848 in 1906.

How common is Waldemar?

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
#13,786
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
459,581 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Waldemar 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 Waldemar. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Waldemars were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Waldemar was born before 1931 — so the typical Waldemar is around 94 today.

Median birth year
1931
About 94 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
23.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
5.1%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
530
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 23.2% of all recorded uses (350).

Is Waldemar 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
+359
Places climbed
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
10.0%
Peak was 1915 (50)
Years since peak
110
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
27.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#848
1906

Spellings of Waldemar

Waldemar is not the most common spelling — Baldemar is, with 47.7% against Waldemar's 31.9%.

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 Waldemar is used

Across 1910–2025, Waldemar was most concentrated in Wisconsin — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 181,091 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Wisconsin1 in 33,333
  2. 2Minnesota1 in 50,000
  3. 3California1 in —
  4. 4Illinois1 in —
  5. 5Michigan1 in —
  6. 6New York1 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. Waldemar has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Waldemar around the world

Where Waldemar 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
    1901–1970
    #2,019
    in 1970
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #448
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1947–1961
    #561
    in 1961

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

Waldemar by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#13,786
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#848
1906
Peak year
1915
50 that year
First recorded
1891
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,510
Count in 2025
5

Names similar to Waldemar

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

WaldenBaldemarValdemarWaleedWalidWaltonWaliShemarNeymarWallyWaltherJosmarWaldonKamarWaltWaldoWallisDemarSamarWilmarLemarJaymarJomarDamar

Sibling names for Waldemar

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 Waldemar

Top names of 1915, Waldemar's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1906Boys' names starting with W