Flannery
A unisex Irish name derived from the surname Flannery, meaning "bloodred, fiery red".
Name Census estimates that about 560 living Americans carry the first name Flannery. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Flannery today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Flannery births was 2006 (23 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Flannery. 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.
People living today
560
~ 1 in 612,061 Americans
Peak year
2006
23 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,993
Tracked since 1980
Popularity
Flannery: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Flannery from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 164 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
Flannery 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 Flannery during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Flannerys live
Origin
Meaning and history of Flannery
The name Flannery is an Anglicized version of the Irish Gaelic name Ó Flannagáin. It originated in Ireland and can be traced back to the 10th century. The name is derived from the Gaelic words "flann," meaning red or ruddy complexion, and "gáin," meaning offspring or descendant.
Flannery was a common surname in medieval Ireland, particularly in the counties of Roscommon, Sligo, and Leitrim. It was later adopted as a given name, initially for boys and later for girls as well. The earliest recorded instances of the name Flannery as a first name date back to the late 18th century.
In Irish folklore, there are references to a legendary figure named Flannery, who was a warrior and chieftain in the ancient kingdom of Connacht. However, details about this historical figure are scarce and often intertwined with myth and legend.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Flannery was Flannery O'Connor, an American novelist and short story writer who lived from 1925 to 1964. She is renowned for her works that explored moral and religious themes in the Southern Gothic tradition.
Another notable Flannery was Flannery O'Connor, an Irish soprano opera singer who performed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was born in 1867 and made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London in 1888.
In the world of sports, Flannery O'Connor was a professional baseball player who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 20th century. He was born in 1884 and played from 1905 to 1916.
Flannery Gregg was an American actress and singer who appeared in various Broadway productions and films in the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in 1912 and had a successful career on stage and screen.
Flannery MacDonald was a Scottish politician and advocate for women's rights. She was born in 1866 and served as a member of the British Parliament from 1918 to 1922, becoming one of the first women to hold a seat in the House of Commons.
People
Flannery + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Flannery as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with F
Other first names starting with F with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Flannery: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Flannery?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 560 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Flannery 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 612,061 US residents.
Is Flannery a common name?
We classify Flannery as "Very Rare". It ranks above 85.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 574 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Flannery most popular?
The single biggest year for Flannery was 2006, when 23 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Flannery is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Flannery a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Flannery 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.
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.