Waldo
Waldo is a boy's name that peaked in 1915, when it was the 407th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 10,695th. About 1,500 Waldos are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Waldo boys named Waldo
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 5,722
- Estimated living today
- 1,500
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 1915
- Best rank
- 407th
- Rank in 2025
- 10,695th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 6 / 5,716
How old the living Waldos are
born that year still alive today
Of the 5,722 babies given the name since 1880, about 1,500 are alive — 25 in every hundred. Roughly 110 of them are children and 590 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 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 Old English
English surname, from the obsolete English given name Waltheof, from Old English weald (“power”) + þēof (“thief”), as in "one who snatched victory from battle." Comparable to, or ultimately Anglicized from the Old Norse equivalent Valthiófr, from vald + *ᚦᛖᚢᛒᚨᛉ. Compare Walthall, Waldie.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Waldos
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)American philosopher
- Waldo Ponce (born 1982)Chilean footballer
- Waldo Machado (1934–2019)Brazilian footballer
- Waldo Frank (1889–1967)American novelist, historian, political activist and literary critic
- Waldo Salt (1914–1987)American screenwriter
- Waldo L. Parra (born 1965)Chilean lawyer and novelist
- Waldo de los Ríos (1934–1977)Argentine composer, conductor, pianist, arranger
- Waldo Rubio Martín (born 1995)association football player
People named Waldo with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Waldo is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Waldo is most concentrated in Minnesota (4.1×), Iowa (4.1×), West Virginia (3.2×), Kansas (3.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1915
The most popular boys’ names the year Waldo peaked:
Waldo elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Waldo | 5 | 4,826th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Waldo 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 | Waldo | 12 | 15 |
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.
Where Waldo lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 300 men called Waldo were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lugo | Waldo | 11 | 0.070 | 768 |
| Badajoz | Waldo | 14 | 0.043 | 875 |
| Pontevedra | Waldo | 18 | 0.039 | 1,050 |
| Albacete | Waldo | 7 | 0.036 | 1,274 |
| Coruña, A | Waldo | 17 | 0.031 | 1,391 |
| Cantabria | Waldo | 7 | 0.024 | 1,596 |
Listed in 17 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 35 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Waldo 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.