Immaculate
Spotless, pure, unblemished; a name denoting purity and freedom from defect.
Name Census estimates that about 10 living Americans carry the first name Immaculate. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Immaculate today is around 84 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Immaculate births was 1917 (8 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Immaculate. 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 Immaculate with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Immaculate is about 84 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Immaculates were born before 1952.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Immaculate. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
10
~ 1 in 34,275,434 Americans
Peak year
1917
8 babies that year
Average age
84
years old
1948 SSA rank
#5,565
Tracked since 1917
Census
Immaculate in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 337 people with the first name Immaculate, which placed it at #27,242 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
#27,242
National first-name rank
People counted
337
337 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
62.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Immaculate
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Immaculate is Black at 62.0%. The next largest groups are White (24.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.4%). 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 Immaculate 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 Immaculate at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American62.0% · 209
- White24.9% · 84
- Asian and Pacific Islander10.4% · 35
- Hispanic or Latino1.8% · 6
- Two or more races0.6% · 2
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 1
Popularity
Immaculate: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Immaculate from the 1910s through to the 1940s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 21 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Immaculate remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Immaculate 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 Immaculate during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Immaculates live
Origin
Meaning and history of Immaculate
The name Immaculate has its roots in the Latin language, derived from the word "immaculatus," meaning "spotless" or "pure." This name gained significant prominence during the Christian era, particularly in association with the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
In the 5th century, the concept of the Immaculate Conception began to take shape, referring to the belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin. The term "Immaculate" was used to describe her purity and sinlessness from the moment of her conception.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Immaculate can be found in religious texts and writings related to Marian devotion. The Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal work dating back to the 2nd century, mentions the name Immaculate in reference to Mary.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Immaculate, although it was often used as a religious or honorific title rather than a given name. One of the most famous examples is Saint Immaculate Bakhita (c. 1869-1947), a Sudanese-born Italian Canossian religious sister who was canonized by the Catholic Church in 2000.
In the literary realm, Immaculate can be found as the name of a character in the novel "The Tortilla Curtain" by T.C. Boyle (born 1948), published in 1995. The character's name serves as a symbolic representation of the themes of purity and innocence explored in the work.
Another notable figure with the name Immaculate is Immaculate Akandu (born 1964), a Nigerian politician and lawyer who served as the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Nigeria from 2003 to 2007.
Immaculate Nyakeru (born 1989) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who won the silver medal in the women's marathon at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Immaculate Heart College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California, founded in 1916, was named in honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a prominent devotion in Catholic tradition.
While the name Immaculate has a deep religious and symbolic significance, particularly in Catholic and Christian contexts, its use as a given name has been relatively uncommon throughout history, often appearing more as a title or honorific.
People
Immaculate + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Immaculate as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Immaculate: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Immaculate?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Immaculate 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 34,275,434 US residents.
Is Immaculate a common name?
We classify Immaculate as "Very Rare". It ranks above 28.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 68 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Immaculate most popular?
The single biggest year for Immaculate was 1917, when 8 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Immaculate is about 84 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Immaculate in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 337 people with the name Immaculate, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #27,242 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 Immaculate 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 Immaculate?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Immaculate leans strongly female. 331 people counted with this name were female (97.9%), compared with 7 male bearers (2.1%). 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 Immaculate?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Immaculate is Black at 62.0%. The next largest groups are White (24.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.4%). 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 Immaculate most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Immaculate in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.0% (209 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 Immaculate in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Immaculate a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Immaculate 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 Immaculate still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Immaculate 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 Immaculate 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 are called Immaculate?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.