Angelica

117,165 people in America carry this name — ranked #483 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it an JEH lih kuh

4 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

AE0 N JH EH1 L IH0 K AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 117,165 2020 Census
  • As a surname 411 ranked #54,177 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Angelica

Greek in origin, reading literally as “angelic”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Angelica has been given

91,205 babies were given this name since 1892. The busiest year was 1996, with 3,412 of them.

90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90s 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Angelica

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Angelica Ashley — runs together
  • Angelica Amy — runs together
  • Angelica Anna — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Angelica has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

Is Angelica a boy's or a girl's name?

0.1% men
117,006 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Same syllables and stress as Angelica

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 4 syllables, stress on the second

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

How to spell Angelica

Angelica is how 49% of them spell it — 239,526 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin