Brooke
A feminine name of English origin meaning "small stream."
Name Census estimates that about 191,964 living Americans carry the first name Brooke. It sits at #308 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (99.0% of registrations). The average person named Brooke today is around 29 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Brooke births was 1996 (6,749 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Brooke. 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 Brooke with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Brooke is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 2,025 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
192K
~ 1 in 1,786 Americans
Peak year
1996
6,749 babies that year
Average age
29
years old
2019 SSA rank
#308
Tracked since 1914
Census
Brooke in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 178,446 people with the first name Brooke, which placed it at #310 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
#310
National first-name rank
People counted
178K
178,446 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
59.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
85.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Brooke
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brooke is White at 85.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.0%) and Black (4.0%). 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 Brooke 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 Brooke at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White85.8% · 153,051
- Hispanic or Latino5.0% · 8,858
- Black or African American4.0% · 7,133
- Two or more races3.9% · 6,961
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 1,408
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 1,035
Gender
Gender distribution for Brooke
Brooke leans heavily female at 99.0% of total registrations, but 2,025 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Brooke as a male name
- Ranked #12,438 in 2019
- 5 male births in 2019
- Peak: 1970 (60 births)
Brooke as a female name
- Ranked #308 in 2024
- 999 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1996 (6,724 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Brooke appears almost entirely female. Of the 178,439 people counted with this name, 99.2% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Brooke: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Brooke from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 60,825 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Brooke 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 Brooke during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Brookes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Ohio recorded the most babies named Brooke, while Wyoming, District of Columbia, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 3,845 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Brooke
The name Brooke is an English given name derived from the Old English word "broc," meaning a small stream or brook. The name has been around since at least the 12th century, with records showing it was used as both a surname and a given name during that time.
The earliest known person to bear the name Brooke was Brooke, a 12th-century English nobleman who lived during the reign of King Henry II. Another notable early bearer of the name was Sir Thomas Brooke, a 14th-century English soldier and knight who fought in the Hundred Years' War.
In literature, the name Brooke appears in several works, including Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," where a character named Brooke is mentioned. The name also appears in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," where Brooke is the name of one of the characters.
One of the most famous historical figures with the name Brooke was Sir Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554-1628), an English poet, dramatist, and statesman who served as a close friend and councillor to Queen Elizabeth I.
Another notable bearer of the name was Sir John Brooke-Pechell (1724-1809), a British military officer and Member of Parliament who served in the American Revolutionary War.
In the 19th century, Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) was an English bishop and biblical scholar who co-authored the Westcott and Hort text of the New Testament.
More recently, Brooke Shields (born 1965) is an American actress, model, and author who rose to prominence as a child actress in the 1970s and 1980s.
Overall, the name Brooke has a long and rich history, with roots dating back to the Middle Ages and a strong connection to English culture and literature.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Brooke
People
Brooke + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Brooke as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Brooke: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Brooke?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 191,964 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Brooke 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 1,786 US residents.
Is Brooke a common name?
We classify Brooke as "Common". It ranks above 99.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 199,542 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Brooke most popular?
The single biggest year for Brooke was 1996, when 6,749 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Brooke is about 29 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Brooke in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 178,446 people with the name Brooke, or 59.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #310 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 Brooke 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 Brooke?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Brooke appears almost entirely female. Of the 178,439 people counted with this name, 99.2% 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 Brooke?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Brooke is White at 85.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.0%) and Black (4.0%). 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 Brooke most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Brooke in the 2020 Census, accounting for 85.8% (153,051 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 Brooke in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Brooke a female name?
Yes, 99.0% of people registered as Brooke 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 Brooke still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Brooke 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 Brooke 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 called Brooke?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.