Priscilla

87,905 people in America carry this name — ranked #603 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it prih SIH luh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

P R IH0 S IH1 L AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 87,905 2020 Census
  • Rank #603 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 29.1 about 1 in 3,771 people

What Priscilla means and where it comes from

Latin in origin, reading literally as “ancient”.

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.

How often Priscilla has been given

120,626 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1942, with 1,999 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1940s. 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 Priscilla

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

Better avoided

  • Priscilla Ashley — runs together
  • Priscilla Amy — runs together
  • Priscilla 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.

A name from before the war

The year most children were called Priscilla was 1942. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.

Boys or girls: who is called Priscilla?

0.1% men
87,810 women

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

The most common 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.

This name in other languages

  • Priske German
  • Prissie English
  • Priscus

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.

Where in America Priscilla is thickest on the ground

In Texas the name is given 2.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Texas ×2.4
  • New Mexico ×2.2
  • Arizona ×2.0
  • California ×2.0
  • Florida ×1.2

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.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 39.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 14.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 37.0%
  • Two or more races — 2.1%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 5.5%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 1.2%

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.

Names built the same way as Priscilla

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the second

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

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height 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 Latin origin