Henrietta
A feminine name of Germanic origin meaning "estate ruler".
Name Census estimates that about 10,167 living Americans carry the first name Henrietta. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Henrietta today is around 66 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Henrietta births was 1918 (1,411 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Henrietta. 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 Henrietta with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Henrietta is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 57 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Henrietta is about 66 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Henriettas were born before 1970.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Henrietta have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
10K
~ 1 in 33,712 Americans
Peak year
1918
1,411 babies that year
Average age
66
years old
1944 SSA rank
#2,135
Tracked since 1880
Census
Henrietta in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,627 people with the first name Henrietta, which placed it at #2,015 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
#2,015
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
13,627 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
47.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Henrietta
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Henrietta is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (37.4%) and Hispanic (8.6%). 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 Henrietta 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 Henrietta at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White47.1% · 6,418
- Black or African American37.4% · 5,099
- Hispanic or Latino8.6% · 1,172
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.6% · 356
- Two or more races2.3% · 319
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 263
Gender
Gender distribution for Henrietta
Out of the 51,321 babies given the name Henrietta since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Henrietta as a male name
- Ranked #3,633 in 1944
- 5 male births in 1944
- Peak: 1930 (9 births)
Henrietta as a female name
- Ranked #2,135 in 2024
- 89 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1918 (1,411 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Henrietta appears almost entirely female. Of the 13,628 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Henrietta: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Henrietta 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 10,476 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Henrietta 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 Henrietta during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Henriettas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 46 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois recorded the most babies named Henrietta, while Vermont, Utah, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 795 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Henrietta
The name Henrietta is a feminine form of the French name Henri, derived from the Germanic name Heimrich, which means 'home ruler' or 'leader of the home'. The name originated in the 8th century and was popularized by the ruling Frankish dynasty of the Carolingians.
Henrietta can be traced back to the Old High German name Haimrih, composed of the elements 'haim' meaning 'home' and 'rih' meaning 'ruler' or 'power'. It is related to the English name Henry, as well as the names Heinrich and Enrique in other languages.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Henrietta is in the 12th century, when it was used by the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. In the 16th century, Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I of England, helped to popularize the name further.
Henrietta Anne, the daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, was born in 1644 and became the Duchess of Orleans upon her marriage to Philippe I, Duke of Orleans. Another notable Henrietta was Henrietta of England (1644-1670), the wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orleans, and a key figure in the cultural life of the French court.
In literature, the name Henrietta appears in William Shakespeare's play 'All's Well That Ends Well', where one of the characters is named Henrietta. It is also the name of a character in Charles Dickens' novel 'The Pickwick Papers'.
Other famous individuals named Henrietta include Henrietta Liston (1752-1828), a Scottish writer and traveler; Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), a Jewish-American Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah; and Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951), an African-American woman whose cancer cells were instrumental in significant medical research.
Henrietta has been a popular name throughout history, particularly in Europe and North America, and it continues to be used today, often as a tribute to its rich historical and cultural heritage.
People
Henrietta + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Henrietta 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
Henrietta: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Henrietta?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,167 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Henrietta 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 33,712 US residents.
Is Henrietta a common name?
We classify Henrietta as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 51,321 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Henrietta most popular?
The single biggest year for Henrietta was 1918, when 1,411 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Henrietta is about 66 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Henrietta in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,627 people with the name Henrietta, or 4.51 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,015 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 Henrietta 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 Henrietta?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Henrietta appears almost entirely female. Of the 13,628 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Henrietta?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Henrietta is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (37.4%) and Hispanic (8.6%). 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 Henrietta most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Henrietta in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.1% (6,418 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 Henrietta in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Henrietta a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Henrietta 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 Henrietta still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Henrietta 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 Henrietta 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 Americans are named Henrietta?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.