Judy
281,131 people in America carry this name — ranked #187 of 923.
A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.
Say it JOO dee
2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part
Phonetic transcription
JH UW1 D IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.
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People counted 281,131 2020 Census
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As a surname 6,583 ranked #5,138 the other way round
The meaning and origin of Judy
Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “praise”.
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.
Judy through the years
383,459 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 21,073 of them.
Most people carrying it were born in the 1940s.
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 Judy
Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.
Better avoided
- Judy Jennifer — same opening
- Judy Julie — same opening
- Judy Janet — 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.
A name from before the war
The year most children were called Judy was 1947. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.
Is Judy used for boys or for girls?
As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.
The same name elsewhere
- Dith Swiss
- Jutta German
- Juthe Hung.|Ger
- Jutka Hungarian
- Jugge English
- Judit Hungarian
- Juczi Hungarian
- Giuda Italian
- Juzeth Breton
- Judith Ger.|Eng
- Judithe French
- Juditha German
- Hodaiah English
- Giuditta Italian
Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.
Who has this name today
- White alone (non-Hispanic) — 84.6%
- Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.8%
- Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.8%
- Two or more races — 2.0%
- Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 4.1%
- American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%
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.
Where the name Judy is most common in the US
In Kentucky the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.
- Kentucky ×1.9
- West Virginia ×1.7
- Arkansas ×1.6
- Mississippi ×1.5
- New Mexico ×1.5
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.
Names built the same way as Judy
Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.
- Michael 3,476,721
- David 2,813,017
- Robert 2,759,339
- William 2,240,114
- Mary 1,768,343
- Daniel 1,607,193
- Joseph 1,600,667
- Richard 1,575,998
- Thomas 1,506,606
- Matthew 1,315,151
Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.
Try it Compare Two Names
Put another name beside this one.
One of those is not in the census file.
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