Radford
loc · Latin script
Meaning: ‘Person from Radford’, a place-name mainly meaning ‘red ford’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Radford is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- FIFinland
- USUnited States
- VAVatican City
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘Person from Radford’, a place-name mainly meaning ‘red ford’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Radford is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from Radford (Devon, Notts, Oxon, Warwicks, Worcs), Ratford Farm (Sussex), Redford (Sussex) or Retford (Notts); either 'red ford' or 'reed ford'; first attested John de Radeford 1209 P (Nt)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, places so called, for example in Devon, Notts., Oxon., Warwicks., and Worcs. Most are named from OE read red (see Read i) + ford Ford, but it is possible that in some cases the first element may be a deriv. of OE rTdan to ride, with the meaning ‘ford that can be crossed on horseback’.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, A number of places in England:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Old English: from the red ford.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Irish, An English toponymic, in Co. Wexford continuously since the sixteenth century. Radwell See page 304
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Arthur William Radfordb. 1896USUnited States naval aviator (1896-1973)
- Basil Radfordb. 1897GBBritish actor (1897-1952)
- Peter Radfordb. 1939GBBritish athlete
- Michael Radfordb. 1946GBBritish film director
- John Radfordb. 1947GBEnglish football player (born 1947)
- Radford M. Nealb. 1956CACanadian computer scientist (1956-)
- Wayne Radfordb. 1956USAmerican basketball player (1956–2021)
- Benjamin Radfordb. 1970USAmerican skeptic
- Eric Radfordb. 1985CACanadian pair skater
- Barbara Radfordb. 2000GBBritish figure skater
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 28 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 13K | #2,785 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 13K | #2,636 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 12K | #2,863 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 11K | #705 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 98 | #15,569 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 83 | #31,609 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 83 | #31,311 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 21 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 21 | #87,963 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 18 | #25,216 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 17 | #27,968 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 8 | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Radford mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Person from Radford’, a place-name mainly meaning ‘red ford’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Radford have the most bearers?
- Radford is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Radford?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/radfordThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Radford”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.