Given name & surname · also French
Canada
“village, settlement”
Canada is a surname from French, ultimately from Proto-North Iroquoian.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Canada goes back to Laurentian kanata, meaning “village, settlement.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Canada comes from French, and ultimately from Proto-North Iroquoian.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From French Canada, from Laurentian kanata (“village, settlement”), from Proto-North Iroquoian *-nat-.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1973. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Canada through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 54
- 0 boys · 54 girls
- Most popular year
- 1975
- 6 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 5 in 2010. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 186 as a first name in 2020; 9,036 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.
Canada’s family of names
In English usage, Canada has a short form in Yu. In English usage, Canada has a short form in Alta.
The ring: nicknames and forms.
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
People named Canada
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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