Cecilia
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "blind".
Name Census estimates that about 77,704 living Americans carry the first name Cecilia. It sits at #123 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Cecilia today is around 34 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cecilia births was 2024 (2,238 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cecilia. 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 Cecilia with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Cecilia is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 177 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
78K
~ 1 in 4,411 Americans
Peak year
2024
2,238 babies that year
Average age
34
years old
2004 SSA rank
#123
Tracked since 1880
Census
Cecilia in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 109,385 people with the first name Cecilia, which placed it at #517 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
#517
National first-name rank
People counted
109K
109,385 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
36.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
54.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cecilia
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cecilia is Hispanic at 54.5%. The next largest groups are White (31.1%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (7.2%). 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 Cecilia 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 Cecilia at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino54.5% · 59,638
- White31.1% · 34,015
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.2% · 7,905
- Black or African American4.7% · 5,151
- Two or more races2.0% · 2,164
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 512
Gender
Gender distribution for Cecilia
Out of the 109,169 babies given the name Cecilia since 1880, 99.8% 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.
Cecilia as a male name
- Ranked #11,647 in 2004
- 5 male births in 2004
- Peak: 1987 (12 births)
Cecilia as a female name
- Ranked #123 in 2024
- 2,238 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (2,238 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cecilia appears almost entirely female. Of the 109,389 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Cecilia: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cecilia from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 16,150 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Cecilia remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cecilia 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 Cecilia during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Cecilias live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Cecilia, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,971 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cecilia
The name Cecilia is derived from the Roman family name Caecilius, which is derived from the Latin word "caecus" meaning "blind." The name Cecilia was popularized during the early days of Christianity as a Latinized form of the Greek name Κεκιλία (Kekilia).
Cecilia was a young Christian martyr who suffered death for her faith in the 3rd century during the Roman persecution of Christians. According to legend, as the executioners were unable to inflict the death penalty upon her, she ultimately died after being struck three times on the neck with a sword. Cecilia was regarded as the patron saint of music and musicians, possibly because she was said to have sung praise to God as she was being martyred.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Cecilia was in the 5th century, when a church was dedicated to St. Cecilia in Rome. The name gained popularity in medieval Europe, particularly in England, where it was associated with the legend of St. Cecilia.
Some notable individuals named Cecilia throughout history include:
1. Cecilia Gallerani (c. 1473-c. 1536), an Italian Renaissance poet and the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting "Lady with an Ermine."
2. Cecilia Renata of Austria (1611-1644), a Polish queen consort and the wife of King Władysław IV Vasa.
3. Cecilia Bartoli (born 1966), an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano and one of the most popular and acclaimed opera singers of recent times.
4. Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942), an American society portrait painter who became one of the foremost female artists of her era.
5. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979), an American-British astronomer who was the first to accurately describe the composition of stars and establish that stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
The name Cecilia has remained popular throughout the centuries, transcending cultural and linguistic boundaries, and continues to be a beloved name choice for parents around the world.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Cecilia
People
Cecilia + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cecilia as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Cecilia: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cecilia?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 77,704 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cecilia 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 4,411 US residents.
Is Cecilia a common name?
We classify Cecilia as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 109,169 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cecilia most popular?
The single biggest year for Cecilia was 2024, when 2,238 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cecilia is about 34 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cecilia in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 109,385 people with the name Cecilia, or 36.22 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #517 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 Cecilia 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 Cecilia?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cecilia appears almost entirely female. Of the 109,389 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Cecilia?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cecilia is Hispanic at 54.5%. The next largest groups are White (31.1%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (7.2%). 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 Cecilia most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Cecilia in the 2020 Census, accounting for 54.5% (59,638 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 Cecilia in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cecilia a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Cecilia 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 Cecilia still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cecilia 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 Cecilia 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 common is the name Cecilia?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.