Wallie
A diminutive form of Walter, derived from the Germanic name meaning "ruler of the army".
Name Census estimates that about 138 living Americans carry the first name Wallie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 86.4% of registrations being male. The average person named Wallie today is around 69 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Wallie births was 1922 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Wallie. 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
- • The typical person named Wallie is about 69 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Wallies were born before 1967.
People living today
138
~ 1 in 2,483,727 Americans
Peak year
1922
19 babies that year
Average age
69
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,373
Tracked since 1885
Census
Wallie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 297 people with the first name Wallie, which placed it at #29,680 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
#29,680
National first-name rank
People counted
297
297 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
61.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Wallie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Wallie is White at 61.6%. The next largest groups are Black (19.9%) and Hispanic (8.8%). 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 Wallie 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 Wallie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White61.6% · 183
- Black or African American19.9% · 59
- Hispanic or Latino8.8% · 26
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.1% · 15
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.7% · 8
- Two or more races2.0% · 6
Gender
Gender distribution for Wallie
Wallie leans heavily male at 86.4% of total registrations, but 57 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Wallie as a male name
- Ranked #10,813 in 2024
- 7 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1925 (14 births)
Wallie as a female name
- Ranked #6,373 in 1952
- 5 female births in 1952
- Peak: 1937 (8 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Wallie on both sides of the split. Of the 290 people counted with this name, 230 were male (79.3%) and 60 were female (20.7%).
Popularity
Wallie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Wallie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 90 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
Wallie 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 Wallie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Wallie
The name Wallie is believed to have originated from the Old English word "weald," which means "forest" or "wooded area." This suggests that the name may have been derived from the names of people who lived in or near forested regions during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, between the 5th and 11th centuries AD.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Wallie can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive record of landowners and their properties compiled in 1086 by order of William the Conqueror. In this document, several individuals with the name "Walli" or "Wallie" are mentioned as landowners or tenants in various parts of England.
During the Middle Ages, the name Wallie was relatively common among the English peasantry and lower nobility. It is possible that some individuals with this name may have been mentioned in local parish records or court documents from that period, although such records are often incomplete or have not survived to the present day.
In more recent history, one notable figure with the name Wallie was Wallie Funk (1915-1988), an American baseball player who played for the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox in the 1940s. Another individual with this name was Wallie Merritt Ricks (1901-1994), a Canadian businessman and philanthropist who founded the Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) in Rexburg, Idaho.
Wallie Herzberg (1904-1988) was a German-American physicist who made significant contributions to the field of atomic and molecular spectroscopy. He was a recipient of the prestigious Max Planck Medal in 1960.
Wallie Tsutsumi (1920-2003) was a Japanese-American artist and educator who played a crucial role in promoting Japanese woodblock printing techniques in the United States. His works are held in the collections of several prominent museums.
Wallie Coyle (1923-2011) was an American jazz drummer who performed with several notable jazz musicians, including Buddy Rich and Dizzy Gillespie, during his career spanning six decades.
While the name Wallie may not have been as widespread as some other names throughout history, it has a rich heritage rooted in the Old English language and has been borne by notable individuals in various fields, including sports, business, academia, and the arts.
People
Wallie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Wallie 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
Wallie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Wallie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 138 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Wallie 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 2,483,727 US residents.
Is Wallie a common name?
We classify Wallie as "Very Rare". It ranks above 69.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 419 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Wallie most popular?
The single biggest year for Wallie was 1922, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Wallie is about 69 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Wallie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 297 people with the name Wallie, or 0.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #29,680 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 Wallie 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 Wallie?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Wallie on both sides of the split. Of the 290 people counted with this name, 230 were male (79.3%) and 60 were female (20.7%). 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 Wallie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Wallie is White at 61.6%. The next largest groups are Black (19.9%) and Hispanic (8.8%). 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 Wallie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Wallie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 61.6% (183 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 Wallie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Wallie a male name?
Yes, 86.4% of people registered as Wallie 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 Wallie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Wallie 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 Wallie 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 Wallie?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.