Amy
A feminine name of French origin, meaning "beloved".
Name Census estimates that about 612,999 living Americans carry the first name Amy. It sits at #228 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Amy today is around 47 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Amy births was 1975 (32,342 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Amy. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Amy with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Amy is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 1,853 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1970s, recent registration numbers for Amy have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
613K
~ 1 in 559 Americans
Peak year
1975
32,342 babies that year
Average age
47
years old
2024 SSA rank
#228
Tracked since 1880
Census
Amy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 625,124 people with the first name Amy, which placed it at #65 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#65
National first-name rank
People counted
625K
625,124 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
207.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
84.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Amy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amy is White at 84.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (7.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (4.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Amy described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Amy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White84.1% · 525,985
- Hispanic or Latino7.2% · 45,137
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.4% · 27,665
- Two or more races2.4% · 14,853
- Black or African American1.4% · 8,808
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 2,676
Gender
Gender distribution for Amy
Out of the 702,270 babies given the name Amy since 1880, 99.7% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Amy as a male name
- Ranked #9,929 in 2024
- 7 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1976 (94 births)
Amy as a female name
- Ranked #228 in 2024
- 1,344 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1975 (32,253 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Amy appears almost entirely female. Of the 625,127 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Amy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Amy from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 269,766 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Amy by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Amy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Amys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Amy, while Alaska, Wyoming, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 13,550 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Amy
The given name Amy has its origins in the Old French name Amee, which itself derived from the Late Latin name Amata, meaning "beloved." The name can be traced back to ancient Roman times and the Latin verb amare, meaning "to love."
In medieval France, the name Amee was relatively common among the upper classes and nobility. It was sometimes spelled Aimée or Aymée. Similar names in other European languages, such as the Italian Amata and Spanish Amada, share the same Latin root.
One of the earliest known references to the name Amy comes from the 12th-century French epic poem, The Song of Roland. In this work, Ami and Amile are the names of two legendary heroes and close friends.
In the 13th century, Amy du Moulin, a French peasant woman, became famous after claiming to have received visions of the Virgin Mary. She is sometimes referred to as Blessed Amy or Amy of Ghent.
During the Renaissance period, Amy Robsart (1532-1560) was an English noblewoman who was the first wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Her mysterious death at a young age led to speculation and rumors of foul play.
In the 17th century, Amy Dudley (1667-1698), the daughter of a British Earl, was a celebrated beauty and socialite who was painted by the famous artist Sir Peter Lely.
Jumping ahead a few centuries, Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was an American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner who was a prominent figure in the Imagist movement of the early 20th century.
Amy Johnson (1903-1941) was a pioneering English aviator who was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia in 1930. She tragically died during World War II while serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Amy
People
Amy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Amy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Amy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Amy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 612,999 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Amy going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 559 US residents.
Is Amy a common name?
We classify Amy as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 702,270 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Amy most popular?
The single biggest year for Amy was 1975, when 32,342 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Amy is about 47 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Amy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 625,124 people with the name Amy, or 206.97 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #65 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Amy in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Amy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Amy appears almost entirely female. Of the 625,127 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Amy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amy is White at 84.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (7.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (4.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Amy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Amy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.1% (525,985 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Amy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Amy a female name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Amy in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Amy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Amy in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Amy can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Amy?
Want to know how many people have the name Amy? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.