Edsel
About 3,962 American babies have been named Edsel since 1914, most of them around 1927. In 2025 it ranked 12,008th. About 1,400 Edsels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 60.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Edsel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 3,962
- Estimated living today
- 1,400
- Median age today
- 60
- Peak year
- 1927
- Best rank
- 399th
- Rank in 2025
- 12,008th
- First recorded
- 1914
How old the living Edsels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,962 babies given the name since 1914, about 1,400 are alive — 35 in every hundred. Roughly 160 of them are children and 610 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1965 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
The automobile marque is, son of Henry Ford. Compare German Etzel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Edsels
- Edsel Bryant Ford (1893–1943)American businessman
People named Edsel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Edsel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Edsel is most concentrated in West Virginia (10.3×), Alabama (6.3×), Kentucky (5.0×), Michigan (4.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1927
The most popular boys’ names the year Edsel peaked:
Edsel among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Edsel | — | 7 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Edsel against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.