Humanverse

Spenser

Spenser reached its high-water mark in 1988 at number 501, and has been recorded 3,363 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 10,695th. About 3,200 Spensers are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 33.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Spenser boys named Spenser

Girls and boys called Spenser

Share of the name given to girls, 1880 to 2025 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 372 girls and 2,991 boys in all, and in 2007 the split was 0 to 31.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 21 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
3,363
Estimated living today
3,200
Median age today
33
Peak year
1988
Best rank
501st
Rank in 2025
10,695th
First recorded
1968
Girls / boys
372 / 2,991

How old the living Spensers are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 3,363 babies given the name since 1968, about 3,200 are alive — 97 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1992 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 Spenser is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Spenser is most concentrated in Washington (2.7×), Iowa (2.6×), California (2.1×), Indiana (2.1×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1988

The most popular boys’ names the year Spenser peaked:

All the names of 1988

Spenser elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
England and Wales boys Spenser 14 2,857th

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.

Related names

Spenser against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Spenser with a name of your own

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.