Candace
Feminine · “queen mother”
Candace is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 84,938 girls against 159 boys since 1880.
Candace is the older spelling of a word that was never a name to begin with. Kandake was the title of the queen mothers of Kush, and Greek and Roman writers who met it in dispatches from the Nile took it for a personal name and wrote it down that way.
How old is the name Candace?
Candace first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Candace alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 77,000 people named Candace are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Candace most popular?
Candace peaked in 1984, reaching #102 nationally. Today it ranks #3167, 3,065 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Candace appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From kandake to Candace
The story of Candace
Kush ruled the middle Nile for roughly a thousand years, and its kandakes held real power — one led forces against a Roman army under Augustus and negotiated the peace that followed. The title entered European writing as a name, and the Acts passage carried it into Christian use. English-speaking Protestants used Candace sparingly from the seventeenth century, and it rose sharply in twentieth-century America, peaking in the early 1980s.
Meaning
queen mother
From the Meroitic kandake, the office held by the queen mothers of the kingdom of Kush, in what is now Sudan. Classical authors treated the title as a name, and the Book of Acts follows them in describing a treasury official of 'Candace, queen of the Ethiopians'. The English name descends from that misreading.
How the name formed
- kandake
- Candace
Related forms: Candice · Kandace · Κανδάκη
Pronouncing Candace
KAN-diss
Two syllables, stress on the first, in ordinary American use. A three-syllable kan-DAY-see is also heard and is closer to the Greek.
Nicknames for Candace
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 19832,698 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #102reached in 1984
- Change vs 2022
- −24.2%50 in 2025, from 66
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Candace in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Candice in English — spelling variant
- Kandace in English — spelling variant
- Κανδάκη in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Candaces among us
people named Candace are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 32,145 born in 2025 was named Candace
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Candace
- #3167
- Candace on the 2025 chart
- #903
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Candace went to 50 girls in 2025, but Kandace is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 57, which makes it the 903rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,264 places above the chart.
- Candace50
- Kandace7
About 1 girl in 28,198 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 32,145 for Candace itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Becky test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Candace's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Becky climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Becky's path sketches the road Candace is walking now.
Candace sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Candace is headed
Candace is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Candace beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Candace in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It reaches back to an African kingdom and a documented line of ruling women.
- It is a title rather than a description, so it makes no claim about its bearer.
- The older spelling is the historically correct one, which some families will prefer.
- Two pronunciations are current and they are not close together.
- Candace, Candice and Kandace are all in use, so the spelling has to be given.
- The short form Candy carries associations some families would rather avoid.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Candace
Feminine · #3167 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Candaces are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 77,000 people named Candace are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Candace?
- Candace is the most-used spelling in US records — 50 of the 57 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kandace.
- How popular is the name Candace in 2025?
- Candace ranks #3167 among US girl names in 2025, with 50 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Candace?
- About 1 in every 32,145 US girls born in 2025 was named Candace — 50 in all.
- Will my child share the name Candace with classmates?
- Candace will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Candace
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lulu#3167 · Lucina#3167 · Irma#3167 · Leyna#3167 · Skylee#3167 · Amairani#3167 · Jorja#3167 · Jozie#3167
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Candace? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Candace and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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