Monica
About 252,257 American babies have been named Monica since 1880, most of them around 1979. In 2025 it ranked 736th. About 229,000 Monicas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 46.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Monica boys named Monica
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 252,257
- Estimated living today
- 229,000
- Median age today
- 46
- Peak year
- 1979
- Best rank
- 40th
- Rank in 2025
- 736th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 251,274 / 983
How old the living Monicas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 252,257 babies given the name since 1880, about 229,000 are alive — 91 in every hundred. Roughly 10,000 of them are children and 21,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1979 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 Latin
From Latin Mŏnĭca, name of the mother of St. Augustine, of uncertain meaning but probably ber or Phoenician origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Monicas
- Monica Bellucci (born 1964)Italian actress and model
- Monica Lewinsky (born 1973)American activist and writer
- Monica Seles (born 1973)Yugoslav and American tennis player
- Monica Vitti (1931–2022)Italian actress
- Monica of Hippo (332–387)Christian saint; mother of St. Augustine
- Mónica Puig (born 1993)Puerto Rican tennis player
- Monica Barbaro (born 1990)American actress
- Monica Niculescu (born 1987)Romanian tennis player
People named Monica with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Monica is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Monica is most concentrated in New Mexico (2.3×), California (1.8×), the District of Columbia (1.7×), Texas (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1979
The most popular girls’ names the year Monica peaked:
Monica elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway girls | Monica | 12,121 | 3rd |
| Italy girls | Monica | 5,428 | — |
| Spain girls | Monica | 4,660 | 49th |
| France girls | Monica | 2,775 | 623rd |
| England and Wales girls | Monica | 1,629 | 274th |
| Ireland girls | Monica | 1,198 | 68th |
| Scotland girls | Monica | 554 | 124th |
| Belgium girls | Monica | 287 | 661st |
| Poland girls | Monica | 106 birth registrations | 238th |
| New Zealand girls | Monica | 56 | 82nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Monica | 14 | 261st |
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.
Monica: rank by region
In 2025, Monica was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Monica | 836 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Monica 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Monica | 10,964 | 14,946 |
| Finland girls | Monica +1 spelling | 1,662 | 2,921 |
| the Netherlands boys | Monica | — | 219 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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.
Where Monica lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 103,427 women called Monica were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lugo | Monica | 1,238 | 7.378 | 21 |
| Pontevedra | Monica | 3,191 | 6.506 | 30 |
| Asturias | Monica | 3,402 | 6.411 | 25 |
| Ourense | Monica | 1,013 | 6.386 | 28 |
| León | Monica | 1,360 | 5.915 | 24 |
| Coruña, A | Monica | 3,444 | 5.828 | 31 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Monica 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.