Alfred

Where Alfred comes from

From Middle English Alfred, from Old English Ælfrǣd, from ælf (“elf”) + rǣd (“counsel”). Doublet of Alfredo and Avery. Equivalent to elf + rede. The modern pronunciation with /f/ is a spelling pronunciation; the name in Old English was pronounced with [v], as shown in its Middle English descendant Alured (in which u stands for modern v).
— Wiktionary's entry for Alfred
  • Old English
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1833
    Alfred Nobel born
    Swedish chemist and inventor
  2. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #35 among boys — 469 babies in the first year on record.
  3. 1882
    Peak, #32
    523 babies named Alfred — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1899
    Alfred Hitchcock born
    British filmmaker
  5. 2010
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #904.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from Old English.
Namesakes
  • Alfred Nobel · Swedish chemist and inventor, 1833–1896
  • Alfred Hitchcock · British filmmaker, 1899–1980
  • Alfred Tennyson · British Poet Laureate, 1809–1892
  • Alfred Adler · Austrian psychotherapist, 1870–1937
  • Alfred Russel Wallace · British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist, 1823–1913

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.