Name Awesome

Pepe

Boys' name

Possibly supposed father

Pepe has been given to 155 babies in the U.S. since 1957. 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 1962, with 11 recorded.

Babies named Pepe, 2002

1 in 747,000

Pepe over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Pepe: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly supposed father

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Pepe means

Pepe may mean “supposed father”, associated with Putativus.

Origin, language, and formation

Pepe is used in Italian and Spanish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Giuseppe, José, Peppe, Pep and Pepa.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Italian, Pepe is pronounced /ˈpe.pe/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 155 boys were recorded with the name Pepe between 1957 and 2002. Its highest annual count was 11 in 1962; its best national rank was #2,634 in 1962.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Pepe?

Pepe had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2002, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2002
1 in 747,000
5 of 3,737,275 births
Among boys only
1 in 388,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2002
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
518,097 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Pepe sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2002 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 518,097 children born in 2002 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Pepe. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Pepes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Pepe was born before 1971 — so the typical Pepe is around 54 today.

Median birth year
1971
About 54 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
40.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
27.1%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
155
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 40.6% of all recorded uses (63).

Is Pepe 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 1962 (11)
Years since peak
63
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
35.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,634
1962

Spellings of Pepe

Pepe is not the most common spelling — Peter is, with 54.6% against Pepe'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.

Where Pepe is used

Across 1910–2025, Pepe was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 3,486,540 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Pepe has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Pepe around the world

Where Pepe 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 & Wales
    2000–2012
    #3,416
    in 2012
  • France
    1926–1971
    #1,962
    in 1971
  • South Australia
    1978–2008
    #726
    in 2008

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Pepe by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,634
1962
Peak year
1962
11 that year
First recorded
1957
Last recorded
2002
All-time count
155
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Pepe

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

PepperPepiPeppiPeppino

Sibling names for Pepe

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Pepe

Top names of 1962, Pepe's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1962Boys' names starting with PJoseph Variations & Nicknames