Mollie
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "bitter".
Name Census estimates that about 22,243 living Americans carry the first name Mollie. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Mollie today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mollie births was 1915 (738 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mollie. 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 Mollie with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
22K
~ 1 in 15,410 Americans
Peak year
1915
738 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2004 SSA rank
#1,206
Tracked since 1880
Census
Mollie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 21,836 people with the first name Mollie, which placed it at #1,516 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
#1,516
National first-name rank
People counted
22K
21,836 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
7.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mollie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mollie is White at 87.4%. The next largest groups are Black (5.0%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Mollie 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 Mollie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.4% · 19,082
- Black or African American5.0% · 1,102
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 686
- Two or more races2.7% · 583
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 229
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 154
Gender
Gender distribution for Mollie
Out of the 47,996 babies given the name Mollie 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.
Mollie as a male name
- Ranked #10,892 in 2004
- 6 male births in 2004
- Peak: 1931 (7 births)
Mollie as a female name
- Ranked #1,206 in 2024
- 196 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1915 (738 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mollie appears almost entirely female. Of the 21,829 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Mollie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mollie 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 5,789 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
Mollie 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 Mollie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mollies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 46 states and territories. New York, Texas, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Mollie, while Nevada, North Dakota, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 707 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mollie
The name Mollie is a feminine given name of English origin, derived from the medieval name Mol or Molle, which was a pet form of the name Mary. The name Mary itself has Hebrew roots, tracing back to the biblical name Miriam.
In the Middle Ages, diminutive forms of Mary such as Mal, Moll, and Mollie became popular as independent names among English speakers. The spelling "Mollie" with the additional "ie" ending emerged in the 16th century and remained a common variant throughout the English-speaking world.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Mollie appears in the 1598 parish records of St. Dunstan's in Canterbury, England, where a Mollie Browne was christened. In literature, the name Mollie is featured in works such as Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Kidnapped" (1886), where a character named Mollie Arbuthnot appears.
Notable individuals named Mollie throughout history include Mollie Steimer (1897-1980), a Russian-American anarchist and labor activist; Mollie Hunter (1888-1971), a Canadian politician and the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta; Mollie Panter-Downes (1906-1997), an English novelist and short story writer; Mollie Sugden (1922-2009), an English actress best known for her role in the TV series "Are You Being Served?"; and Mollie Bailey (1923-2022), an American aviator and one of the first female African American officers in the United States Air Force.
While the name Mollie experienced peaks in popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it has remained a consistently used name throughout the English-speaking world, often chosen for its connection to the classic name Mary while retaining a distinct and charming quality.
People
Mollie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mollie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Mollie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mollie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 22,243 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mollie 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 15,410 US residents.
Is Mollie a common name?
We classify Mollie 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, 47,996 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mollie most popular?
The single biggest year for Mollie was 1915, when 738 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mollie is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mollie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 21,836 people with the name Mollie, or 7.23 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,516 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 Mollie 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 Mollie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mollie appears almost entirely female. Of the 21,829 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 Mollie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mollie is White at 87.4%. The next largest groups are Black (5.0%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Mollie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mollie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.4% (19,082 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 Mollie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mollie a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Mollie 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 Mollie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mollie 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 Mollie 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 Mollie as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.