Felicia

78,101 people in America carry this name — ranked #677 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it fuh LEE shuh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

F AH0 L IY1 SH AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 78,101 2020 Census
  • Rank #677 Familiar

The meaning and origin of Felicia

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “happy”.

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.

Felicia through the years

91,203 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1986, with 3,092 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1970s. 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.

What goes well after Felicia

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

Better avoided

  • Felicia Ashley — runs together
  • Felicia Amy — runs together
  • Felicia 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

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

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

0.1% men
78,006 women

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

The states where Felicia is most common

In Mississippi the name is given 2.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Mississippi ×2.7
  • New Mexico ×2.4
  • Alabama ×2.3
  • the District of Columbia ×2.0
  • South Carolina ×1.8

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 Felicia is spelled

Felicia is how 57% of them spell it — 136,616 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.

Same syllables and stress as Felicia

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.

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.

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Familiar

  • People counted78,101
  • Rank#677
  • Roughly1 in 4,244 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 Teutonic origin