Patience
Feminine · Latin roots · “Patience”
Patience is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 12,425 girls against 44 boys since 1880.
Patience is one of the plainest kinds of English name: a word lifted straight out of the language and handed to a child. English Puritans took up virtue names like this in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and carried them across the Atlantic to New England, where they stayed in family lines for generations. Three syllables, all of them soft, ending in a hush.
How old is the name Patience?
Patience was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Patience alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 11,500 people named Patience are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Patience most popular?
Patience peaked in 2006, reaching #577 nationally. Today it ranks #1295, 718 places below that high. See the whole 2006 chart.
Patience appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From patientia (Latin) to Patience
The story of Patience
The word arrived in English through Old French pacience from Latin patientia, and it was still an ordinary abstract noun long before anyone wore it. Its life as a given name belongs to the Reformation: Puritan families in England began naming daughters for the virtues they hoped to practice — Patience, Mercy, Prudence, Charity — and those names crossed to the American colonies with them, where they held on far longer than they did back home. Gilbert and Sullivan gave the name a title role in their 1881 comic opera Patience, keeping it in Victorian ears. It is also widely used today in English-speaking West Africa, where virtue names in English are a living tradition rather than a revival.
Meaning
Patience, endurance, forbearance
From Latin patientia, built on pati, 'to suffer, to endure' — the same root behind the English word patient.
How the name formed
- patientiaLatin
- pacienceOld French
- PatienceEnglish
Related forms: Paciencia · Pazienza · Paciência · Patience · Patientia
Pronouncing Patience
PAY-shunss
Exactly like the English word. Stress on the first syllable; nobody has to be taught it twice.
Nicknames for Patience
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 2005472 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #577reached in 2006
- Change vs 2022
- −15.3%172 in 2025, from 203
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.
Patience in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Paciencia in Spanish — same name
- Pazienza in Italian — same name
- Paciência in Portuguese — same name
- Patience in French — same name
- Patientia in Latin — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Florida.
Patiences among us
people named Patience are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,345 born in 2025 was named Patience
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kacey test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Patience's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kacey climbed just as high around 1991, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kacey's path sketches the road Patience is walking now.
Patience 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 Patience is headed
Patience should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Patience beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Patience in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelling and pronunciation are settled for anyone who reads English — it is a dictionary word, so no correcting over the phone.
- Documented as a given name since the Reformation, with an unbroken run in American records ever since statistics began.
- In current, everyday use in English-speaking West Africa as well as the US, so it travels without becoming strange.
- Rare enough in American classrooms that a child is unlikely to share it, while the word itself is familiar to everyone.
- The name is an instruction as well as a name. Expect a lifetime of mild remarks about living up to it — from teachers, relatives, and strangers who think of the joke first.
- Short forms are thin. Pat and Patty both belong more to Patricia, so a child who wants a nickname may have to borrow one.
- It sits in a small family of virtue names — Mercy, Prudence, Verity — that some ears hear as distinctly old-fashioned or devout. That reading is not universal, but it is common enough to be worth knowing in advance.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Patience to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Patience? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Patience
Feminine · Latin roots · #1295 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Patiences are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Patience are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Patience in 2025?
- Patience ranks #1295 among US girl names in 2025, with 172 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Patience?
- About 1 in every 9,345 US girls born in 2025 was named Patience — 172 in all.
- Will my child share the name Patience with classmates?
- Patience will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Patience
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rori#1295 · Devyn#1295 · Laynie#1295 · Eliyanah#1291 · Blossom#1299 · Althea#1299 · Kodi#1299 · Rae#1299
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Patience? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Patience and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Cast your vote
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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