Penelope
Feminine · “Either "weaver" or a kind of duck”
Penelope is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 109,480 girls against 53 boys since 1880.
Penelope has been spoken aloud for roughly three thousand years — it belongs to the wife of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, the woman at the loom who unpicked by night what she wove by day. Four syllables that end on a light, open sound, and a short form, Penny, that English speakers have used for centuries. It is one of the oldest names still turning up in kindergartens.
How old is the name Penelope?
Penelope was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Penelope is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 104,000 people named Penelope are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Penelope most popular?
Penelope peaked in 2022, reaching #21 nationally. Today it ranks #22, 1 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Where it comes from
From Πηνελόπη (Penelopē) to Penelope
The story of Penelope
The name is Greek and reaches us first through the Odyssey, composed in the eighth century BC, where Penelope holds Ithaca together for twenty years of her husband's absence. Roman writers carried the spelling into Latin unchanged, and English took it up during the Renaissance revival of classical names, when educated families began christening daughters out of Homer and Ovid. In Ireland, English-language records used Penelope as a stand-in for the Irish name Fionnghuala, which is how it settled into families with no Greek at all. It has also stayed in use in Greece itself, where the children's writer Penelope Delta published in the early twentieth century.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either "weaver" or a kind of duck, from Greek
Two readings compete. One links Πηνελόπη to πήνη (pēnē), "thread" or "weft", plus a root meaning face or eye — a reading that suits the loom in the Odyssey so neatly that scholars have long suspected it was invented to fit. The other, generally preferred by Greek etymologists, connects the name to πηνέλοψ (pēnelops), a wild duck. Neither has won outright.
Cultural footprint
Penélope Cruz (b. 1974) — First Spanish actress to win an Oscar
Penelope Wilton (b. 1946) — Downton Abbey's Isobel Crawley
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- ΠηνελόπηPenelopē
- PenelopeLatin
- PenelopeEnglish
Related forms: Πηνελόπη · Penélope · Pénélope · Penelope · Penélope · Penelopa
Pronouncing Penelope
puh-NEL-uh-pee
Four syllables, stress on the second. The final -e is pronounced, not silent — readers who meet the name in print before they hear it sometimes try "PEN-uh-lope", which is the one thing to head off early.
Nicknames for Penelope
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
- 20176,668 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #21reached in 2022
- Change vs 2022
- −3.2%6,225 in 2025, from 6,430
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.
Penelope in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Πηνελόπη in Greek — transliteration
- Penélope in Spanish — spelling variant
- Pénélope in French — spelling variant
- Penelope in Italian — same name
- Penélope in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Penelopa in Polish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Office for National Statistics, Statistics Canada, National Records of Scotland. Sources
Penelopes among us
people named Penelope are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 258 born in 2025 was named Penelope
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 Janice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Penelope's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Janice climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Janice's path sketches the road Penelope is walking now.
Penelope is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Penelope is headed
Penelope should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Penelope beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Penelope in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented record going back to Homer, with the spelling essentially unchanged since Latin — nothing about it needs explaining or defending.
- Penny, Pen and Nell are all long-established short forms, so there is a formal version and a casual one built in.
- Works in Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese with at most an added accent, and Greek is its home language.
- Currently charting in England and Wales, Canada and Scotland as well as the US, so it travels without translation.
- The final -e trips people up in writing and in speech; expect a lifetime of gentle corrections from anyone who has only seen it on a page.
- It is climbing quickly, so a child born now may meet more Penelopes as a teenager than as a toddler, even if she is the only one in her year at first.
- Penny, the most natural short form, is also the word for a coin — worth knowing if you would rather she went by the full name.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Penelope to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Penelope
Feminine · #22 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Penelopes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 104,000 people named Penelope are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Penelope in 2025?
- Penelope ranks #22 among US girl names in 2025, with 6,225 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Penelope?
- About 1 in every 258 US girls born in 2025 was named Penelope — 6,225 in all.
- Will my child share the name Penelope with classmates?
- Penelope will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Penelope
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Chloe#23 · Hazel#21 · Ellie#24 · Nora#20 · Lucy#24 · Camila#19 · Aria#26 · Lily#18
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Penelope? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Penelope and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Or jump into a head-to-head
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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; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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