Penny

81,497 people in America carry this name — ranked #646 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it PEH nee

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

P EH1 N IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 81,497 2020 Census
  • Rank #646 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 27.0 about 1 in 4,067 people

Where Penny comes from and what it means

Greek in origin, reading literally as “weaver”.

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.

Penny through the years

98,999 babies were given this name since 1882. The busiest year was 1963, with 5,141 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. It has been given more 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 for Penny

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

Better avoided

  • Penny Patricia — same opening
  • Penny Paula — same opening
  • Penny Peggy — 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.

On the way up

Penny is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Is Penny used for boys or for girls?

0.3% men
81,287 women

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

Same syllables and stress as Penny

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

The likeliest full names

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 about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Where the name Penny is most common in the US

In Vermont the name is given 3.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Vermont ×3.9
  • West Virginia ×2.2
  • Maine ×2.1
  • Kentucky ×2.0
  • Tennessee ×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.

This name in other languages

  • Pen English
  • Penelope English

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.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher 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