Henry
Feminine · “ruler of the home”
Henry is given to boys far more often — 768,945 boys against 4,619 girls since 1880. See Henry as a boy name
Henry stood inside the American top four hundred and fifty for girls in 1882. That is not a data error and it is not a nickname: nineteenth-century American families gave daughters men's names unchanged, usually to carry a father's or grandfather's name forward when there was no son to do it. The practice was widespread and it has almost entirely disappeared.
How old is the name Henry?
Henry was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Henry alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 1,800 people named Henry are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Henry most popular?
Henry peaked in 1882, reaching #446 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 5,471 places below that high. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From haim ric to Henry
The story of Henry
Naming a daughter with a man's unaltered name was ordinary in nineteenth-century America and had a clear function: family names were carried forward through given names, and a family with daughters and no sons used the daughters. American records for the 1880s carry girls named Henry, William, Charley, Jesse, Frank and John in real numbers. The practice faded after 1900 as feminine derivatives — Henrietta, Wilhelmina, Josephine, Frances — became the expected solution, and it disappeared almost entirely by 1930. Its return in the twenty-first century, in names like James and Charlie on girls, is a separate development with different reasoning.
Meaning
ruler of the home; ruler of an estate
Germanic haim, 'home, estate, dwelling', and ric, 'ruler, power' — the same second element as in Frederick, Roderick and Erich. The compound gives German Heinrich, French Henri and English Henry. The first element meant a household and its lands rather than a house, so the sense is closer to lord of an estate than to master of a home. The derivation is settled.
How the name formed
- haim ric
- Heinrich
- Henri
- Henry
Related forms: Heinrich · Henri · Enrique · Enrico · Henrik
Pronouncing Henry
HEN-ree
Two syllables, stress on the first. Identical on either sex; there is no separate feminine pronunciation and never was.
Nicknames for Henry
High
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1927105 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #446reached in 1882
- Change vs 2022
- +66.7%20 in 2025, from 12
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.
Henry in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Heinrich in German — related form
- Henri in French — related form
- Enrique in Spanish — related form
- Enrico in Italian — related form
- Henrik in Hungarian — related form
Henrys among us
people named Henry are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Henry
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Henry 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
Henry beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Henry in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and expressible in four words.
- It has an unusually well-documented royal history across several countries.
- The nineteenth-century American use on girls is genuine and documented, not an invention.
- In current use it is overwhelmingly a boys' name and will be read that way.
- Forms and databases will assume male.
- Henrietta and Harriet are the feminine forms most people expect instead.
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Henry
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Henrys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Henry are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Henry in 2025?
- Henry ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Henry?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Henry — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Henry with classmates?
- Henry will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Henry
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Henry? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Henry and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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