The terms "Brad" and "Chad" have evolved significantly over time, transforming from common names to stereotypes and, more recently, to internet memes. This evolution reflects changing cultural perceptions and the way we use language to categorize individuals.
The phrase "Dads, Brads and Chads" was first coined by singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift used the phrase in the lengthy story crowning her as Time magazine’s Person of the Year on Wednesday. From here on out, angry football fans who don’t like the attention Taylor Swift gets when she attends Kansas City Chiefs games will be known as “dads, Brads and Chads.”
Swifties have grown tired of hearing football fans complain. The Swift Society, a fan group with more than 590,000 followers on X, tweeted a photo of Swift “sipping tea” along with the quote. A sampling of other tweets:
- “Dads, Brads, and Chads” is actually the grammatically correct collective noun for a group of men whose opinions don’t matter.”
- “One of the songs on her next album will 100% be dads, Brads and Chads.”
- “Casualties of taylor swift’s time magazine interview: kim kardashian, stans pitting two successful women against each other (as in Swift and fellow superstar Beyonce), the foreign country formerly known as england, dads, brads, and chads.”
To be fair, the “Taylor Swift is here” hubbub during game broadcasts has calmed considerably. She barely showed up at all on “Sunday Night Football” last weekend. The magazine wrote that Swift, a football fan herself, “is sensitive to the attention” she gets and doesn’t even know when she’s being shown on camera during the games. “I’m just there to support Travis,” she said. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”
Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes watching a Kansas City Chiefs game.
Read also: What to Wear: Morocco Edition
The rise of "Brad" and "Chad" as cultural figures is intertwined with their historical roots and eventual adoption into internet culture.
The Historical Roots of Brad and Chad
Brad is often short for Bradford, which started as a surname and is of Scottish-English origin, Adams says, reading from A Dictionary of Surnames. In Old English, the name literally means “broad clearing.” The name crossed the pond in the late 16th century with the establishment of the first English colonies on American soil. William Bradford was one of the original Pilgrims, coming to New England on the Mayflower, and eventually serving as governor of the Plymouth Colony.
Either way, over centuries, the name Bradford became synonymous with New England aristocracy - so much so that women with the maiden name Bradford started naming their sons Bradford, to advertise that they were from the Bradford lineage. “If you were descendents of the Bradfords, or if you wanted to make it seem like you were, you might use Bradford as the name of your son - so that when you sent him off to the Exeter Academy, people would make certain assumptions about who was,” Adams explains. And somewhere along the line, that got shortened to Brad.
Chad has an even more circuitous journey into the modern lexicon. Like Bradford, it’s Anglo-Saxon, but it started as a first name: Ceadda (pronounced “chadda”). The most popular Ceadda in history is probably, Saint Ceadda, abbot of Lastingham, bishop of York and Lichfield and the man credited with “the Christianization of the ancient English kingdom of Mercia.” But today he’s known as Saint Chad, or Chad of Mercia.
From Ceadda came Chadwick, which was a rough portmanteau of Ceadda and “wick,” an Old English word for town, Adams says. Brits named their towns Chadwick, and then adopted Chadwick as their surname. How Chadwick came to America is unclear, but Adams guesses the Chadwicks were among some of the earliest English settlers in America. And just like the Bradfords, they named their sons Chadwick to maintain the prestige of their bloodline. Eventually, it was truncated to Chad.
Read also: Discover Essaouira, Morocco
“So by a very strange route, Chad went from a first name, to a town name, to a last name, back to being a first name, and now a nickname, in the case just Chad,” Adam says. This lexical history explains why we tend to think of Brad and Chad as WASP-y, old money, prep school, New England bros - there’s a legitimate historical basis to the Brad/Chad stereotype.
Visual representation of Brad and Chad stereotypes.
The Rise of the Stereotype
But it wasn’t until recently that the names carried a negative connotation. Chad, too, reached its cultural zenith in 2000, when it was the 236th most popular name for boys. It’s steadily declined afterward, and fell out of the top 1,000 in 2008. But like Brad, by 2016, it had fallen out of favor, checking in at number 800. (Data for 2017 aren’t yet available.)
All the while, people online had started clowning on Brad and Chad. For instance, many of the results for Brad on Urban Dictionary are ironic paeans to Brad’s superiority. “[Brad] is known to be the ultimate sex machine. It’s common to share his crazy sex stories to his friends. This sounds like torture, but it’s actually entertaining when you meet a Brad,” reads one of them.
The top result for Chad is similarly glowing, but the second definition gives a more accurate depiction: “[Chad is] a tool. Someone who consistently wears cut off t-shirts, gold or silver chains, jerseys, baggy jeans, jean shorts. Favorite brands are Abercrombie, American Eagle, or Wal-Mart. They are often douche-bags.” Chad carries specific meaning in certain internet communities. In r/incels, a subreddit for men who are “involuntarily celibate,” Chad is the man incels simultaneously resent and aspire to be. Chad is handsome. Chad is charming. Chad’s comfortable speaking to women. Chad fucks. (Incels, however, can’t get laid no matter what they do.)
Read also: Morocco Time Information
The Enduring Appeal of the Stereotype
Adams says our cultural fascination with Brad and Chad may lie in the similar phonetics of their names. Elongate the “A” in Brad and Chad, and suddenly it becomes a way to mock men with those names. “Braaaaaaahd!” “Chaaaaaaahd!” They’re names that naturally lend themselves to being made fun of. No wonder, then, that the names have fallen out of favor.
That said, with 2000 being the most popular year for Brads and Chads, there are a bunch of 17-year-old Brads and Chads out there who will descend upon college campuses next year for the first time, and likely further cement the names as stereotypes for total goons.
For his part, Adams has had several Brads and Chads in his Indiana University classroom. “The Brads and Chads I’ve taught have never been at the top of the class, grades-wise. They usually sit in the back of the classroom. And while I can’t give you accurate statistics on their fraternity participation, they were certainly that type,” he says. “So from my own impressions, I can confirm the value of the stereotype.”
Here's a table summarizing the popularity trends of the names Brad and Chad:
| Name | Peak Popularity | Rank at Peak | Year Fell Out of Top 1000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brad | 2000 | N/A | 2008 |
| Chad | 2000 | 236 | N/A |
Popular articles:
tags: #Chad
