Cassandra

141,760 people in America carry this name — ranked #398 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it kuh SAND ruh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K AH0 S AE1 N D R AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 141,760 2020 Census
  • Rank #398 Common

Where Cassandra comes from and what it means

Greek in origin, reading literally as “inflaming men with love”.

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.

Cassandra name popularity by year

169,020 babies were given this name since 1902. The busiest year was 1990, with 7,072 of them.

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 Cassandra

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

Better avoided

  • Cassandra Ashley — runs together
  • Cassandra Amy — runs together
  • Cassandra 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

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

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

0.1% men
141,602 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.

Names with the same rhythm as Cassandra

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 — 3 syllables, stress on the second

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

How to spell Cassandra

Cassandra is how 72% of them spell it — 197,353 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.

The states where Cassandra is most common

In New Hampshire the name is given 1.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Hampshire ×1.5
  • Wisconsin ×1.5
  • North Dakota ×1.5
  • Minnesota ×1.4
  • New Mexico ×1.4

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.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet 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