Iowa
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Iowa has been given to 79 babies in the U.S. since 1890. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1899, with 8 recorded.
Babies named Iowa, 1921
1 in 467,000
Iowa over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Iowa?
Iowa had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1921, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1921
- 1 in 467,000
- 5 of 2,334,460 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 247,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1921
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 323,626 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Iowa sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1921 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 323,626 children born in 1921 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Iowa. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Iowas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Iowa was born before 1912 — so the typical Iowa is around 113 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 46.8% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 78.5%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 46.8% of all recorded uses (37).
Is Iowa rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1899 (8)
- Years since peak
- 126
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Very steady
- 0% average annual change
Spellings of Iowa
Iowa is not the most common spelling — Nora is, with 10.5% against Iowa's <0.01%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Iowa around the world
Where Iowa ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2012–2012#5,876in 2012
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.
Iowa by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Iowa
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Iowa
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.