Holly
The girl's name Holly has been in the national records since 1880, with 206,845 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 416th. About 191,000 Hollys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 45.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Holly boys named Holly
Girls and boys called Holly
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Holly crossed from boys to girls in 1926, and has stayed there for 100 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 100% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 113 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 206,845
- Estimated living today
- 191,000
- Median age today
- 45
- Peak year
- 1983
- Best rank
- 48th
- Rank in 2025
- 416th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 205,304 / 1,541
How old the living Hollys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 206,845 babies given the name since 1880, about 191,000 are alive — 93 in every hundred. Roughly 13,000 of them are children and 20,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1980 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin English
As a feminine given name popularized by Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's (especially the 1961 film adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Hollys
- Arthur Holly Compton (1892–1962)American physicist
- Holly Hunter (born 1958)American actress
- Holly Marie Combs (born 1973)American actress
- Holly Madison (born 1979)American television personality
- Holly Valance (born 1983)Australian actress and singer
- Holly Black (born 1971)American children's fiction writer
- Holly Holm (born 1981)American boxer and mixed martial artist
- Holly Bradshaw (born 1991)British pole vaulter
People named Holly with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Holly is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Holly is most concentrated in Alaska (2.1×), New Hampshire (1.9×), Utah (1.9×), Idaho (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1983
The most popular girls’ names the year Holly peaked:
Holly elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Holly | 52,588 | 12th |
| Scotland girls | Holly | 7,025 | 15th |
| Ireland girls | Holly | 6,123 | 11th |
| New Zealand girls | Holly | 4,501 | 16th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Holly | 1,919 | 25th |
| France girls | Holly | 230 | 2,290th |
| Switzerland girls | Holly | 81 | 636th |
| Belgium girls | Holly | 45 | 978th |
| Poland girls | Holly | 43 birth registrations | 367th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Holly: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Holly | 58 | 0.005% | 604th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Holly | 20 | 0.005% | 345th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Holly | 3 | 0.005% | 183rd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Holly: rank by region
In 2022, Holly was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Holly | 435 | 6 |
In 2024, Holly was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Małopolskie | Holly | 203 | 3 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Holly by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 18 | 342nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Holly among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Holly | 32 | 39 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Holly against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.