Reed

English, "red-haired"

Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, born Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr., turns 65 years old this October 8. Reed is one of those names with two widely-used and equally proper spellings, Reed and Reid. Reid is the less straightforward but, counterintuitively imo, the more popular of the pair, used for more than 1100 baby boys in the US last year compared with around 750 for Reed. (Theoretically there’s also Read, but no one used that spelling last year.)

Reed is one of many R-starting names that mean red or red-haired. It can sound like a buttoned-up banker or a nature-loving artist. An English surname-name, it missed only one year on the Top 1000, 1880, the very first year records were kept. While both versions of Reed have drifted along comfortably in the middle of the Top 1000 for decades now, counted together they’re as popular as Tyler or Peter.