Masterpiece Generator Name Generator
How popular is the name Penny?
Births per year, rank history and how many Pennies are alive today.
Penny (female) sits just outside the top 100 girls' names in England and Wales, ranked 232nd in 2025 with 201 babies given the name. The name peaked in 2016, when 305 babies were given the name, the 178th most popular that year. Numbers have been falling in recent years. Penny is also a common short form of Penelope, so many people called Penny are registered under the longer name.
The Penny you are most likely to meet is around 10 years old. Half of all Pennies born in England and Wales are between 6 and 17, and there are at least 5,100 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 females, there's roughly a 1.6% chance that at least one of them will be called Penny.
How many babies are named Penny each year?
Where does Penny 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.
Common questions
When was the name Penny most popular?
Penny peaked in 2016, when 305 babies in England and Wales were given the name.
How many people are called Penny?
At least 5,100 people named Penny born in England and Wales are alive today.
How old is the typical Penny?
Most living Pennies are between 6 and 17; the most common age is about 10.
Is Penny becoming more or less popular?
Declining: numbers have been falling in recent years.