Name Generator

How popular is the name Penelope?

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

Penelope (female) is currently the 36th most popular girls' name in England and Wales, with 1,133 babies given the name in 2024. The name peaked in 2022, when 1,206 babies were given the name, the 32nd most popular that year. It has risen strongly over the past decade. At least 14,000 babies have been named Penelope in England and Wales since 1944. Figures before 1996 are estimates. Common short forms of Penelope include Penny and Nell.

The Penelope you are most likely to meet is around 4 years old. Half of all Penelopes born in England and Wales are between 8 and 69, and there are at least 29,000 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 females, there's roughly a 8.8% chance that at least one of them will be called Penelope.

How many babies are named Penelope each year?

Where does Penelope rank among girls' names?

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.