Nancy
A feminine name of uncertain origin, possibly derived from Anne.
Name Census estimates that about 557,131 living Americans carry the first name Nancy. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Nancy today is around 67 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nancy births was 1947 (32,502 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nancy. 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 Nancy with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Nancy is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 2,945 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Nancy is about 67 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Nancys were born before 1969.
- • Compared to the 1950s, recent registration numbers for Nancy have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
557K
~ 1 in 615 Americans
Peak year
1947
32,502 babies that year
Average age
67
years old
2004 SSA rank
#921
Tracked since 1880
Census
Nancy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 772,570 people with the first name Nancy, which placed it at #40 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
#40
National first-name rank
People counted
773K
772,570 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
255.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nancy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nancy is White at 81.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (12.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.7%). 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 Nancy 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 Nancy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.1% · 626,905
- Hispanic or Latino12.2% · 94,465
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.7% · 20,764
- Black or African American2.3% · 17,687
- Two or more races1.3% · 10,131
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 2,618
Gender
Gender distribution for Nancy
Out of the 1,007,116 babies given the name Nancy since 1880, 99.7% 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.
Nancy as a male name
- Ranked #12,629 in 2004
- 5 male births in 2004
- Peak: 1938 (91 births)
Nancy as a female name
- Ranked #921 in 2024
- 288 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1947 (32,445 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nancy appears almost entirely female. Of the 772,570 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Nancy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nancy from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 287,352 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nancy 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 Nancy 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 | 7 | 4,792 | 4,799 |
| 1890s | 0 | 5,346 | 5,346 |
| 1900s | 5 | 5,733 | 5,738 |
| 1910s | 54 | 17,283 | 17,337 |
| 1920s | 151 | 43,807 | 43,958 |
| 1930s | 558 | 142,486 | 143,044 |
| 1940s | 585 | 252,058 | 252,643 |
| 1950s | 540 | 286,812 | 287,352 |
| 1960s | 411 | 142,723 | 143,134 |
| 1970s | 211 | 41,849 | 42,060 |
| 1980s | 260 | 25,493 | 25,753 |
| 1990s | 138 | 19,495 | 19,633 |
| 2000s | 25 | 10,958 | 10,983 |
| 2010s | 0 | 3,927 | 3,927 |
| 2020s | 0 | 1,409 | 1,409 |
Geography
Where Nancys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Nancy, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 19,358 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Nancy
The name Nancy is derived from the medieval French name Annis, which was a pet form of the ancient Germanic name Arnoald or Arnaud. The name Arnoald was composed of the elements "arn" meaning "eagle" and "wald" meaning "rule". The French variant Annis eventually evolved into the modern English name Nancy.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Nancy can be found in the 12th century work "Roman d'Eneas", a medieval French romance poem based on Virgil's Aeneid. In the poem, the character Annis is a young woman who falls in love with the hero Aeneas.
Nancy was a relatively popular name in medieval England and France, with some notable historical figures bearing the name. One such figure was Nancy de Lacy, born in 1262, who was a wealthy heiress and landowner in Lincolnshire, England.
In the 16th century, Nancy became a popular name among the French nobility. One notable figure was Nancy de Bourbon, born in 1505, who was a French noblewoman and member of the House of Bourbon.
During the 17th century, the name Nancy gained popularity in England and Scotland. One famous bearer of the name was Nancy Astor, born in 1879, who was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons.
Another well-known Nancy from history was Nancy Hanks, the mother of President Abraham Lincoln. She was born in 1784 and played a significant role in shaping the life and character of one of America's most iconic leaders.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the name Nancy remained a popular choice, with several notable figures bearing the name. These include Nancy Mitford, born in 1904, a British novelist and biographer, and Nancy Reagan, born in 1921, the wife of former US President Ronald Reagan and a prominent First Lady.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Nancy
People
Nancy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nancy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nancy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nancy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 557,131 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nancy 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 615 US residents.
Is Nancy a common name?
We classify Nancy as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,007,116 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nancy most popular?
The single biggest year for Nancy was 1947, when 32,502 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nancy is about 67 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nancy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 772,570 people with the name Nancy, or 255.79 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #40 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 Nancy 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 Nancy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nancy appears almost entirely female. Of the 772,570 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 Nancy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nancy is White at 81.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (12.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.7%). 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 Nancy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Nancy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.1% (626,905 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 Nancy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nancy a female name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Nancy 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 Nancy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nancy 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 Nancy 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 share the name Nancy?
Want to know how many Americans are named Nancy? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.