Wallace
A medieval diminutive form of Walter meaning "commanding warrior".
Name Census estimates that about 30,842 living Americans carry the first name Wallace. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Wallace today is around 62 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Wallace births was 1923 (2,815 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Wallace. 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 Wallace with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Wallace is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 582 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
31K
~ 1 in 11,113 Americans
Peak year
1923
2,815 babies that year
Average age
62
years old
2024 SSA rank
#981
Tracked since 1880
Census
Wallace in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 29,215 people with the first name Wallace, which placed it at #1,272 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
#1,272
National first-name rank
People counted
29K
29,215 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
9.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
70.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Wallace
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Wallace is White at 70.4%. The next largest groups are Black (20.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.0%). 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 Wallace 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 Wallace at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White70.4% · 20,571
- Black or African American20.3% · 5,934
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.0% · 884
- Two or more races2.7% · 783
- Hispanic or Latino2.1% · 620
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 423
Gender
Gender distribution for Wallace
Out of the 83,606 babies given the name Wallace since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Wallace as a male name
- Ranked #981 in 2024
- 229 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1923 (2,803 births)
Wallace as a female name
- Ranked #15,056 in 2023
- 6 female births in 2023
- Peak: 1918 (19 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Wallace appears almost entirely male. Of the 29,219 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Wallace: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Wallace from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 21,055 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Wallace 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 Wallace during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Wallaces live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Wallace, while Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,471 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Wallace
The given name Wallace has its origins in the medieval French language, derived from the Germanic name Walahis. This name is a compound of two elements - "walah" meaning "foreigner" or "stranger," and "hais" meaning "son" or "child." The name was brought to Britain by the Norman invaders in the 11th century.
The earliest recorded use of the name Wallace dates back to the 12th century, found in the Pipe Rolls of Northamptonshire, England. It referred to someone who was a Briton or a Celt, as they were considered "foreigners" or "strangers" by the Norman French ruling class.
One of the most famous bearers of the name was Sir William Wallace, the Scottish knight and landowner who played a leading role in the Wars of Scottish Independence against the English in the late 13th century. Born around 1270, Wallace became a prominent figure in the resistance against the occupation of King Edward I of England.
Another notable Wallace was Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist, explorer, and biologist who independently proposed the theory of evolution through natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin. Wallace was born in 1823 and made significant contributions to the study of biogeography and evolutionary theory.
In literature, the name Wallace is associated with Edgar Wallace, the prolific English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in 1875, he was one of the most popular writers of the early 20th century, known for his crime novels and thrillers.
The name Wallace also has ties to the American Civil War. Lewis "Lew" Wallace was a Union general, lawyer, and author, born in 1827. He is best known for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, which became a bestseller and was later adapted into a famous film.
David Foster Wallace, born in 1962, was an influential American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His novel Infinite Jest, published in 1996, is considered one of the most significant works of late 20th-century fiction.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Wallace
People
Wallace + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Wallace as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with W
Other first names starting with W with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Wallace: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Wallace?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 30,842 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Wallace 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 11,113 US residents.
Is Wallace a common name?
We classify Wallace as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 83,606 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Wallace most popular?
The single biggest year for Wallace was 1923, when 2,815 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Wallace is about 62 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Wallace in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 29,215 people with the name Wallace, or 9.67 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,272 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 Wallace 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 Wallace?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Wallace appears almost entirely male. Of the 29,219 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Wallace?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Wallace is White at 70.4%. The next largest groups are Black (20.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.0%). 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 Wallace most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Wallace in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.4% (20,571 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 Wallace in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Wallace a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Wallace in the SSA data are male. 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 Wallace still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Wallace 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 Wallace 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 Americans are named Wallace?
Want to know how many Americans are named Wallace? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.