Penelope

girls’ nameComebackCompare

Penelope is ranked 28th among girls in 2024 (5,741 births). Its best rank was 21st, in 2022.

Rank in 2024: #28down 5 from 2023
Births in 2024: 5,7410.36% of girls
Peak year: 20196,733 births
Best rank: #21in 2022
Since 1880: 103,215people given the name

Babies named Penelope, by year of birthgirls

The story in the numbers

103,215 girls have been named Penelope in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 2019, with 6,733 births — 0.40% of all girls recorded that year.

This is a comeback. After an early peak the name fell to a fraction of its former share, and it has been climbing again for the past decade.

Half of everyone given the name was born by 2016, and the 2010s alone account for 46%. It has spent 74 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 12 of them in the top 100.

Rank among girls, year by year

Higher on the chart = more popularrank (gaps = outside the top 1,000)

By decade

Decade	girls named Penelope
1880s	34
1890s	36
1900s	29
1910s	248
1920s	562
1930s	1,109
1940s	6,383
1950s	4,758
1960s	2,870
1970s	1,754
1980s	611
1990s	794
2000s	5,677
2010s	47,607
2020s	30,743

In 2019, its biggest year

Penelope was the 22nd most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 2019 were Olivia, Emma, Ava, Sophia and Isabella. See all of 2019.

Names that rose and fell with Penelope

Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.

What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.