Ann

293,049 people in America carry this name — ranked #178 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Baby Boomers.

Say it AN

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

AE1 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 293,049 2020 Census
  • Rank #178 Common
  • Per 100,000 97.0 about 1 in 1,131 people
  • As a surname 1,263 ranked #21,146 the other way round

What Ann means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “grace”.

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.

Ann name popularity by year

470,481 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1957, with 9,068 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. 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 Ann

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Ann Nancy — runs together
  • Ann Ashley — same opening
  • Ann Amanda — same opening

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

Ann has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Is Ann used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
292,674 women

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

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 87.3%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.6%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.6%
  • Two or more races — 1.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

The states where Ann is most common

In Wisconsin the name is given 2.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Wisconsin ×2.4
  • Minnesota ×2.3
  • Iowa ×2.2
  • Massachusetts ×2.0
  • Vermont ×1.9

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

How Ann is spelled

Ann is how 29% of them spell it — 1,027,696 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.

Names built the same way as Ann

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

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

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Common

  • People counted293,049
  • Rank#178
  • Roughly1 in 1,131 people

Open the full entry

Open How Rare Is It? 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 Hebrew origin