Given name & surname
Needham
“need, necessity”
Needham is a surname from Old English.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Needham goes back to Old English nīed, meaning “need, necessity.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1884. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Needham through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 328
- 328 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1923
- 15 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 boys is 5 in 1962. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 150 as a first name in 2020; 10,723 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.
Similar names
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