Stacy
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "fruitful".
Name Census estimates that about 165,366 living Americans carry the first name Stacy. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 88.1% of registrations being female. The average person named Stacy today is around 50 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Stacy births was 1971 (10,143 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Stacy. 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.
Key insights
- • Stacy started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Compared to the 1970s, recent registration numbers for Stacy have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
165K
~ 1 in 2,073 Americans
Peak year
1971
10,143 babies that year
Average age
50
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,395
Tracked since 1880
Gender
Gender distribution for Stacy
Stacy leans heavily female at 88.1% of total registrations, but 22,241 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Stacy as a male name
- Ranked #12,112 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1968 (1,737 births)
Stacy as a female name
- Ranked #1,395 in 2024
- 161 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1971 (9,116 births)
Popularity
Stacy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Stacy from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 77,159 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Stacy 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 Stacy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Stacys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Stacy, while Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 3,515 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Stacy
Stacy is a feminine given name of Greek origin. It derives from the ancient Greek name Stachia, which itself is a feminine form of the masculine name Stachys. The root of the name is "stachys," meaning "an ear of grain."
The name Stachys appears in the New Testament of the Bible, where it refers to one of the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus Christ to preach the gospel. The name was fairly uncommon in ancient Greece but saw some usage in the Byzantine Empire period.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name Stacy was Stacy de Hudituna, an English woman mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name also appears occasionally in medieval English records and literature, such as in the 14th-century work "The Vision of Piers Plowman" by William Langland.
In the 16th century, Stacy was the name of a character in the play "Gammer Gurton's Needle" by Mr. S., one of the earliest known comedic plays in English literature. The name gained some popularity in England during this period.
A notable historical figure with the name Stacy was Stacy Towles (1590-1644), an English clergyman and academic who served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1628 to 1629.
In the 18th century, Stacy Markham (1717-1804) was an English politician and member of parliament for the Borough of Okehampton from 1768 to 1790.
The name Stacy also appeared in America during the colonial era. Stacy Cornbury (1656-1692) was one of the early settlers of Burlington, New Jersey, and a prominent Quaker leader in the region.
Another notable American bearer of the name was Stacy Lloyd (1738-1826), a Quaker minister and abolitionist from Maryland who was active in the Underground Railroad.
Stacy Potts (1799-1865) was an American politician who served as the 13th Governor of Virginia from 1858 to 1861, during the turbulent period leading up to the American Civil War.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Stacy
People
Stacy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Stacy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Stacy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Stacy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 165,366 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Stacy 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 2,073 US residents.
Is Stacy a common name?
We classify Stacy as "Common". It ranks above 99.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 186,130 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Stacy most popular?
The single biggest year for Stacy was 1971, when 10,143 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Stacy is about 50 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Stacy a female name?
Yes, 88.1% of people registered as Stacy 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.
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.