Name Generator

How popular is the name Nancy?

Births per year, rank history and how many Nancies are alive today.

Nancy (female) is currently the 81st most popular girls' name in England and Wales, with 578 babies given the name in 2024. This spelling of the name peaked in 1914, when around 1,300 babies were given the name, the 50th most popular that year. Its fortunes dipped to rank 329 in 1997 before climbing back to the 81st place it holds today. Numbers have been falling in recent years. At least 15,000 babies have been named Nancy in England and Wales since 1904. Figures before 1996 are estimates. Nancy is one spelling of a name also recorded as Nancie; the combined figures below cover every spelling.

Across all spellings of the name, the Nancy you are most likely to meet is around 9 years old. Half of all Nancies born in England and Wales are between 10 and 68, and there are at least 28,000 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 females, there's roughly a 8.5% chance that at least one of them will be called Nancy.

How many babies are named Nancy each year?

Includes all spellings: Nancy, Nancie. Figures before 1996 are estimates.

Where does the Nancy spelling rank?

Where does the Nancie spelling rank?

Where this data comes from

Figures from 1996 onwards are the Office for National Statistics' annual baby-name registrations for England and Wales, which record every name given to three or more babies in a year. Figures before 1996 are estimates: the ONS published only top-100 rankings at ten-year intervals back to 1904, so counts for those years are modelled from the rankings, calibrated against Douglas Galbi's long-run research into English name frequencies, and shown with an uncertainty band. Estimates of living bearers combine these birth figures with national life tables and ONS mid-year population estimates.

One limit worth naming: these figures count names as registered at birth. Anyone who changes their name later in life - including trans people, and anyone who adopts a different name by deed poll or simply by use - is not reflected here. Birth registrations record where a name began, not the name a person lives with.