Imogene

About Imogene

Imogene is a spelling variant of Imogen, the name associated with the heroine of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. The older form Innogen is probably connected with a Gaelic word meaning “maiden,” though the name’s history includes an uncertain change in spelling. Comic actress Imogene Coca gives this distinctly vintage American form a memorable twentieth-century association.

Imogen, Innogen, and Imogene

Shakespeare based the character’s name on the legendary Innogen. The spelling Imogen is usually explained as an early printing error that became established through the play. Innogen probably derives from Gaelic inghean, “maiden,” so that meaning reaches Imogene by a literary and spelling history rather than a direct modern borrowing.

Imogene adds a final e to Imogen and has its own established pronunciation. It is pronounced IM-uh-jeen in English, with three syllables and the main stress at the beginning. The final syllable has the long ee sound. Imogen and Innogen are the closest historical relatives.

The heroine of Cymbeline

Shakespeare’s Imogen secretly marries Posthumus Leonatus, provoking the anger of her father, King Cymbeline. Posthumus is banished and then drawn into a wager that exposes Imogen to slander and danger.

Her story involves disguise, jealousy, an apparently deathlike sleep, and eventual reunion. The play places her trials within a romance version of ancient Britain, alongside a conflict with Rome and the rediscovery of her lost brothers.

The character is named Imogen in the familiar printed text, rather than Imogene. The longer spelling carries that literary connection while sounding different in its final syllable. The heroine’s loyalty and endurance are central to the story’s emotional force.

Imogene Coca

Imogene Coca became famous in early television comedy, particularly opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. Her performances combined physical comedy with the demands of live variety entertainment. The Television Academy records a Best Actress Emmy win in 1952, alongside several nominations during that early period.

She later headed The Imogene Coca Show, an NBC comedy and variety series running in 1954–55. A surviving episode in the Paley Center’s collection includes comic sketches, song, dance, and a parody of the film The Country Girl.

Her screen career continued beyond the pioneering variety era: she received an Emmy nomination for a guest performance in Moonlighting in 1988. Those credits connect Imogene with several generations of television, from live sketch programs to a later scripted series.

American popularity

Imogene’s strongest American year for girls was 1927, with 1,494 births and a ranking of #157. Its largest period of use therefore came before Coca’s television fame.

The name had become very rare by 2000, when five girls received it. In 2025 it was recorded for seventy girls, ranking #2,521. That is a modest recovery from its recent low, while remaining far below its early twentieth-century levels.

How popular is Imogene?

In 2025, Imogene ranked #2,521 among girls in the United States, with 70 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 1,494 in 1927. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.