Nancy

772,570 people in America carry this name — ranked #40 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it NAN see

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

N AE1 N S IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 772,570 2020 Census
  • As a surname 562 ranked #41,707 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Nancy

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.

Nancy through the years

1,005,950 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 32,502 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.

What goes well after Nancy

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Nancy Nicole — same opening
  • Nancy Natalie — 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 Nancy was 1947. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Is Nancy used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
771,926 women

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

Spellings of Nancy

Nancy is how 98% of them spell it — 786,939 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.

Where in America Nancy is thickest on the ground

In Massachusetts the name is given 1.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Massachusetts ×1.7
  • Rhode Island ×1.6
  • North Dakota ×1.6
  • New Jersey ×1.6
  • New York ×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 with the same rhythm as Nancy

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 — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs 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