Penelope Girl
How popular is Penelope?
#22 girl name in 2025
6,225 baby girls were named Penelope in the US in 2025, making it the 22nd most popular girl name.
Penelope popularity over time
Boys Girls
| Rank in 2025 | #22 for girls (▲ 6 from 2024) |
|---|---|
| Babies in 2025 | 6,225 girls |
| 10-year trend | Steady (+5% babies vs 2015) |
| Earlier ranks | #34 in 2015, #26 in 2020 |
| Peak year | 2019 (6,734 girls) |
| Highest rank | #21 in 2022 |
| First recorded | 1880 |
| Boys vs girls (last 10 years) | 0% boys, 100% girls |
| Chance a classmate shares it | 4% in a class of 25 kids born in 2025 |
Penelope counting every spelling
Social Security counts each spelling as its own name. Adding together the spellings that sound alike, the Penelope family of names ranked #36 for girls in 2025 (#41 the year before), with 6,245 babies in all.
| Spelling | Girls in 2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Penelope | 6,225 | 100% |
| Pennelope | 13 | 0% |
| Penellope | 7 | 0% |
Spellings are grouped by how they sound, using our own rules, so a few groupings may not match how your family says the name.
Where Penelope is most popular
Babies named Penelope per 1,000 girls born in each state, 2021 to 2025. Darker means more common.
- Alaska: 12.8 per 1,000 (110 girls)
- Vermont: 10.1 per 1,000 (49 girls)
- Rhode Island: 9.3 per 1,000 (116 girls)
- Maine: 9.0 per 1,000 (139 girls)
- Wyoming: 8.4 per 1,000 (36 girls)
Penelope by decade
| Decade | Baby girls | Best rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 34 | #817 |
| 1890s | 36 | #943 |
| 1900s | 29 | #1,607 |
| 1910s | 248 | #1,026 |
| 1920s | 562 | #913 |
| 1930s | 1,109 | #325 |
| 1940s | 6,383 | #265 |
| 1950s | 4,758 | #305 |
| 1960s | 2,871 | #531 |
| 1970s | 1,750 | #571 |
| 1980s | 609 | #1,460 |
| 1990s | 795 | #1,456 |
| 2000s | 5,677 | #253 |
| 2010s | 47,614 | #22 |
| 2020s | 37,005 | #21 |
Girl names about as popular as Penelope
Questions
- Is Penelope a boy or girl name?
- Penelope is mostly a girl name. Over the last 10 years, 100% of babies named Penelope were girls.
- How popular is the name Penelope?
- 6,225 baby girls were named Penelope in the US in 2025, making it the 22nd most popular girl name.
- When was Penelope most popular?
- Penelope peaked in 2019, when 6,734 girls were given the name. Its highest rank was #21 in 2022.
- How many people are named Penelope?
- 109,533 babies have been named Penelope in the US since 1880. We estimate about 103,641 of them are alive in 2026, with a median age of 9.
- Where is Penelope most popular?
- From 2021 to 2025, Penelope was most common in Alaska, at 12.8 of every 1,000 girls born there.
Source: Social Security Administration baby name data, 1880 to 2025 (names given to at least 5 babies of a sex in a year). Living-people and median-age figures are our estimates using US life tables. How we calculate.