Penellope
#12,864 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Penellope has been given to 99 babies in the U.S. since 2013. In 2025 it ranked #12,864 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2017, with 16 recorded.
Babies named Penellope, 2025
1 in 474,000
Penellope 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Penellope?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 474,000
- 7 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 230,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #12,864
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 328,272 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Penellope sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 328,272 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Penellope. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Penellopes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Penellope was born before 2018 — so the typical Penellope is around 7 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2010s
- 60.6% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 99
- People you could plausibly meet
2010s — 60.6% of all recorded uses (60).
Is Penellope 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
- +264
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- +3,086
- Places climbed
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 1.17×
- More babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 43.8%
- Peak was 2017 (16)
- Years since peak
- 8
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 41.9% average annual change
Spellings of Penellope
Penellope is not the most common spelling — Penelope is, with 99.1% against Penellope's 0.09%.
Penellope by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Penellope
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Penellope
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.