Given name & surname
Azad
“one who is free”
Azad is used as a given name and a surname. One Arabic interpretation is “one who is free.”
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Arabic interpretation is “one who is free.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Arabic.
How it developed
From Persian آزاد (âzâd), from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭦𐭠𐭲.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1918. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Azad through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 380
- 380 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2023
- 36 babies
- 2025
- 22
- #4,560 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +64%
- Rising fast
Where it’s given
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 22 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 4,560 among boys’ names. Average annual use for boys was 64.0% higher in 2021–2025 than in 2016–2020. In 2025, California had the largest reported state-level birth count for boys with this name (6). Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 817 as a first name in 2020; 1,937 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Azad’s family of names
In Northern Kurdish usage, Azad was borrowed from the Persian form آزاد.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Azad
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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