Penelope
About 109,533 American babies have been named Penelope since 1880, most of them around 2019. In 2025 it ranked 22nd. About 103,000 Penelopes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 8.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Penelope boys named Penelope
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 109,533
- Estimated living today
- 103,000
- Median age today
- 8
- Peak year
- 2019
- Best rank
- 22nd
- Rank in 2025
- 22nd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 109,480 / 53
How old the living Penelopes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 109,533 babies given the name since 1880, about 103,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 86,000 of them are children and 8,200 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2017 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 Ancient Greek
From possibly from πηνέλοψ (“duck”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Penelopes
- Penélope Cruz (born 1974)Spanish actress
- Penelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000)British writer and poet
- Penelope Ann Miller (born 1964)American actress
- Penelope Wilton (born 1946)English actress
- Penelope Lively (born 1933)British novelist
- Penelope Delta (1874–1941)Greek children's writer
- Penelope Heyns (born 1974)swimmer
- Penelope Coelen (born 1940)South African actress, model and beauty queen, crowned Miss World 1958
People named Penelope with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Penelope is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Penelope is most concentrated in Nevada (2.5×), Arizona (2.1×), Alaska (1.8×), Washington (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2019
The most popular girls’ names the year Penelope peaked:
Penelope elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Penelope | 14,283 | 32nd |
| France girls | Penelope +2 spellings | 5,345 | 280th |
| Italy girls | Penelope | 4,172 | — |
| New Zealand girls | Penelope | 1,612 | 76th |
| Scotland girls | Penelope | 703 | 71st |
| Ireland girls | Penelope | 473 | 119th |
| Switzerland girls | Penelope +2 spellings | 343 | 425th |
| Belgium girls | Pénélope +2 spellings | 331 | 514th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Penelope | 211 | 99th |
| Poland girls | Penelope +1 spelling | 27 birth registrations | 548th |
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.
Penelope: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Penelope | 122 | 0.010% | 402nd |
| German girls | Switzerland | Penélope | 32 | 0.003% | 743rd |
| German girls | Switzerland | Pénélope | 8 | 0.001% | 1,186th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Pénélope | 91 | 0.021% | 242nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Penelope | 44 | 0.010% | 354th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Penélope | 11 | 0.003% | 759th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Penelope | 35 | 0.054% | 64th |
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.
By canton, Penelope is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.06% of children were given it – 35 of them.
Penelope: rank by region
In 2025, Penelope was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Penelope | 836 | 5 |
| Wallonia | Pénélope | 399 | 6 |
In 2021, Penelope was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Penelope | 282 | 2 |
In 2023, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Penelope appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (202nd) and Province of Antwerp (281st).
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.
Penelope by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 37 | 244th |
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 552nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Penelope 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 | Penelope +1 spelling | 34 | 98 |
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.
Where Penelope lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,506 women called Penelope 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Penelope | 76 | 0.129 | 805 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Penelope | 114 | 0.111 | 732 |
| Balears, Illes | Penelope | 58 | 0.092 | 833 |
| Toledo | Penelope | 34 | 0.091 | 811 |
| Madrid | Penelope | 311 | 0.084 | 784 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Penelope | 46 | 0.083 | 1,082 |
Listed in 39 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 13 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Penelope 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.