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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Stacy with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Stacy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 162,112 people with the first name Stacy, which placed it at #345 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
#345
National first-name rank
People counted
162K
162,112 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
53.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
78.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Stacy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Stacy is White at 78.9%. The next largest groups are Black (9.3%) and Hispanic (6.3%). 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 Stacy 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 Stacy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White78.9% · 127,887
- Black or African American9.3% · 15,007
- Hispanic or Latino6.3% · 10,243
- Two or more races2.8% · 4,619
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.9% · 3,147
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 1,209
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)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Stacy leans strongly female. 146,488 people counted with this name were female (90.4%), compared with 15,621 male bearers (9.6%).
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.
How common was Stacy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 162,112 people with the name Stacy, or 53.67 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #345 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 Stacy 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 Stacy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Stacy leans strongly female. 146,488 people counted with this name were female (90.4%), compared with 15,621 male bearers (9.6%). 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 Stacy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Stacy is White at 78.9%. The next largest groups are Black (9.3%) and Hispanic (6.3%). 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 Stacy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Stacy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 78.9% (127,887 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 Stacy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Stacy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Stacy 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 Stacy 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 Stacy?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.