Hattie
A diminutive of Harriet, derived from the name Henry, meaning "head of the household".
Name Census estimates that about 22,615 living Americans carry the first name Hattie. It sits at #382 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Hattie today is around 45 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Hattie births was 1918 (2,006 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Hattie. 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.
Key insights
- • Although Hattie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 494 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
23K
~ 1 in 15,156 Americans
Peak year
1918
2,006 babies that year
Average age
45
years old
1959 SSA rank
#382
Tracked since 1880
Gender
Gender distribution for Hattie
Out of the 104,763 babies given the name Hattie since 1880, 99.5% 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.
Hattie as a male name
- Ranked #4,238 in 1959
- 5 male births in 1959
- Peak: 1919 (15 births)
Hattie as a female name
- Ranked #382 in 2024
- 819 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1918 (1,999 births)
Popularity
Hattie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Hattie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 16,487 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Hattie 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 Hattie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Hatties live
The SSA's state-level files cover 49 states and territories. North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina recorded the most babies named Hattie, while New Mexico, Alaska, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,325 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Hattie
The name Hattie originated as a diminutive or pet form of the English name Harriet, which itself derived from the French name Henriette. Henriette stemmed from the Germanic roots Haimric, meaning "home ruler" or "ruler of the household". The masculine version was Henry or Henri.
Hattie first emerged as a name in its own right during the Middle Ages in England and other parts of the British Isles. It grew in popularity alongside the rise of nicknames and pet names for more formal given names. The earliest known bearer was Hattie de Burgh from 1236 in Kent, England.
By the 16th century, Hattie had spread to other European countries like France, Germany, and the Netherlands. One notable early bearer was Hattie of Coligney from France in 1552, wife of the French Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny. The name also appeared in Dutch records around this time.
In the 17th century, Puritan settlers carried the name Hattie to the British colonies in North America. One of the first recorded American bearers was Hattie Woodhouse, born in 1632 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hattie remained a relatively common name in New England throughout the colonial era.
Some other historical figures named Hattie include Hattie McDaniel (1895-1952), the first African American to win an Academy Award for her role in Gone With the Wind, and Hattie Caraway (1878-1950), the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
In literature, characters named Hattie appear in works like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), featuring Hattie Weston, as well as Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie (1900) and Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).
People
Hattie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Hattie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Hattie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Hattie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 22,615 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Hattie 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 15,156 US residents.
Is Hattie a common name?
We classify Hattie as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 104,763 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Hattie most popular?
The single biggest year for Hattie was 1918, when 2,006 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Hattie is about 45 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Hattie a female name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Hattie 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.