Henry
A masculine name of German origin meaning "estate ruler".
Our analysis of Social Security Administration records puts the number of living Americans named Henry at approximately 395,153. That places it at #6 in the national ranking of first names. It is a predominantly male name (99.4% of registrations). The average person named Henry today is around 39 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Henry births was 2024 (11,561 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Isabella (394,076).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Henry. 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 Henry with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Henry is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 4,599 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
395K
~ 1 in 867 Americans
Peak year
2024
11,561 babies that year
Average age
39
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6
Tracked since 1880
Census
Henry in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 354,671 people with the first name Henry, which placed it at #141 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
#141
National first-name rank
People counted
355K
354,671 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
117.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
61.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Henry
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Henry is White at 61.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.0%) and Black (13.0%). 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 Henry 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 Henry at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White61.3% · 217,504
- Hispanic or Latino16.0% · 56,690
- Black or African American13.0% · 46,088
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.9% · 21,091
- Two or more races3.1% · 11,061
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 2,237
Gender
Gender distribution for Henry
Out of the 761,424 babies given the name Henry since 1880, 99.4% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Henry as a male name
- Ranked #6 in 2024
- 11,547 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (11,547 births)
Henry as a female name
- Ranked #7,710 in 2024
- 14 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1925 (110 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Henry appears almost entirely male. Of the 354,666 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Henry: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Henry 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 105,474 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Henry remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Henry 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 Henry during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 24,139 | 150 | 24,289 |
| 1890s | 21,664 | 187 | 21,851 |
| 1900s | 21,772 | 198 | 21,970 |
| 1910s | 79,667 | 600 | 80,267 |
| 1920s | 104,552 | 922 | 105,474 |
| 1930s | 70,418 | 643 | 71,061 |
| 1940s | 72,486 | 501 | 72,987 |
| 1950s | 62,232 | 361 | 62,593 |
| 1960s | 39,135 | 286 | 39,421 |
| 1970s | 23,515 | 220 | 23,735 |
| 1980s | 20,727 | 189 | 20,916 |
| 1990s | 25,244 | 96 | 25,340 |
| 2000s | 42,742 | 81 | 42,823 |
| 2010s | 92,571 | 102 | 92,673 |
| 2020s | 55,961 | 63 | 56,024 |
Geography
Where Henrys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Texas recorded the most babies named Henry, while Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 13,528 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Henry
The name Henry has its origins in the Germanic languages. It derives from the Old German name Heimrich, which itself comes from the words heim meaning "home" and rich meaning "power" or "ruler." The name can be interpreted as meaning "ruler of the home" or "the home ruler."
Henry was a popular name among the Germanic peoples in the early Middle Ages. It first appeared in written records in the 8th century AD, with references to individuals such as Henry of Bavaria, a Duke who lived from around 735 to 786.
The name gained greater prominence in the 11th century with Henry I of France, who ruled from 1031 to 1060. He was the first of several French kings named Henry. Other notable historical figures with this name include Henry II of England (1133-1189), who ruled over an empire spanning England and parts of France. He is remembered for his quarrels with Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Henry III of England (1207-1272) reigned during a turbulent period marked by conflicts with his barons over the limits of royal power. Henry IV (1367-1413) was the first monarch of the House of Lancaster and came to power after deposing Richard II in 1399. Henry V (1387-1422) is celebrated for his military victories against the French in the Hundred Years' War, including the famous Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
Other prominent Henrys in history include Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), whose reign saw the English Reformation and the break with the Catholic Church. He was married six times. Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) was a Portuguese prince who sponsored voyages of exploration along the African coast, helping initiate the Age of Discovery.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Henry
People
Henry + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Henry 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
Henry: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Henry?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 395,153 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Henry 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 867 US residents.
Is Henry a common name?
We classify Henry as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 761,424 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Henry most popular?
The single biggest year for Henry was 2024, when 11,561 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Henry is about 39 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Henry in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 354,671 people with the name Henry, or 117.43 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #141 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 Henry 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 Henry?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Henry appears almost entirely male. Of the 354,666 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Henry?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Henry is White at 61.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.0%) and Black (13.0%). 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 Henry most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Henry in the 2020 Census, accounting for 61.3% (217,504 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 Henry in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Henry a male name?
Yes, 99.4% of people registered as Henry in the SSA data are male. 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 Henry still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Henry 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 Henry 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 the name Henry?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.