Enola
A feminine given name derived from "alone" spelled backward.
Name Census estimates that about 1,175 living Americans carry the first name Enola. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Enola today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Enola births was 1953 (99 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Enola. 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 Enola with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.2K
~ 1 in 291,706 Americans
Peak year
1953
99 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,889
Tracked since 1885
Census
Enola in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,081 people with the first name Enola, which placed it at #11,729 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
#11,729
National first-name rank
People counted
1.1K
1,081 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Enola
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Enola is White at 62.6%. The next largest groups are Black (21.7%) and Hispanic (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 Enola 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 Enola at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.6% · 677
- Black or African American21.7% · 235
- Hispanic or Latino7.2% · 78
- Two or more races5.4% · 58
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.2% · 24
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 9
Popularity
Enola: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Enola from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 561 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Enola remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Enola 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 Enola during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Enolas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. Louisiana, Texas, California recorded the most babies named Enola, while Washington, Ohio, North Carolina recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 64 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Enola
The name Enola is derived from the word "alone" spelled backwards. It is believed to have originated in the late 19th or early 20th century, possibly as a invented name or a literary creation. While its origins are not entirely clear, it is thought to have been first used as a given name in English-speaking countries.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Enola was for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the American military aviator Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The bomber was named after his mother, suggesting that she may have been one of the earliest known individuals to bear the name Enola.
Another notable individual with the name Enola was Enola Holmes, a fictional character created by author Nancy Springer in her series of young adult novels. The character is the younger sister of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and is depicted as a highly intelligent and independent young woman who becomes a detective herself.
In the world of literature, Enola was the name of a character in the 1924 novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie. This novel marked the introduction of Christie's famous detective, Hercule Poirot.
Enola was also the name of a character in the 1931 novel "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932 and is considered a classic of American literature.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Enola was Enola M. Pruitt, an American woman who homesteaded in Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Her memoir, "Letters of a Woman Homesteader," published in 1914, provided a firsthand account of life on the frontier and became a classic of American literature.
While the name Enola may have been invented or derived from a literary source, it has gained popularity over time and is now used as a given name in various parts of the world. However, its origins remain somewhat enigmatic, adding to the unique and intriguing nature of this name.
People
Enola + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Enola as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Enola: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Enola?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,175 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Enola 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 291,706 US residents.
Is Enola a common name?
We classify Enola as "Rare". It ranks above 91.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 3,040 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Enola most popular?
The single biggest year for Enola was 1953, when 99 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Enola is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Enola in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,081 people with the name Enola, or 0.36 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,729 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 Enola 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 Enola?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Enola appears almost entirely female. Of the 1,080 people counted with this name, 99.6% 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 Enola?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Enola is White at 62.6%. The next largest groups are Black (21.7%) and Hispanic (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 Enola most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Enola in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.6% (677 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 Enola in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Enola a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Enola 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 Enola still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Enola 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 Enola 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 have Enola as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Enola on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.