Cedric was invented by Sir Walter Scott for a Saxon nobleman in Ivanhoe in 1819, probably as a reshaping of Cerdic, the name of the first king of Wessex, whose meaning is unknown; it is often glossed loosely as "bounty" or "kindly". Little Lord Fauntleroy and later the comedian Cedric the Entertainer kept it in the public eye. In the United States Cedric ranked number 463 in 2000 and has eased down gradually to number 1051 in 2025.