Annie
A feminine form of the name Anne, meaning "grace".
Name Census estimates that about 98,263 living Americans carry the first name Annie. It sits at #191 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Annie today is around 53 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Annie births was 1922 (7,513 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Annie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Annie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Annie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 1,927 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
98K
~ 1 in 3,488 Americans
Peak year
1922
7,513 babies that year
Average age
53
years old
2020 SSA rank
#191
Tracked since 1880
Census
Annie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 115,895 people with the first name Annie, which placed it at #487 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#487
National first-name rank
People counted
116K
115,895 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
38.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
40.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Annie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Annie is White at 40.9%. The next largest groups are Black (36.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (13.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Annie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Annie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White40.9% · 47,366
- Black or African American36.8% · 42,699
- Asian and Pacific Islander13.5% · 15,605
- Hispanic or Latino5.7% · 6,572
- Two or more races2.2% · 2,591
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 1,062
Gender
Gender distribution for Annie
Out of the 360,467 babies given the name Annie since 1880, 99.5% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Annie as a male name
- Ranked #12,150 in 2020
- 5 male births in 2020
- Peak: 1927 (60 births)
Annie as a female name
- Ranked #191 in 2024
- 1,564 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1922 (7,476 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Annie appears almost entirely female. Of the 115,909 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Annie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Annie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 69,902 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Annie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Annie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Annies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Annie, while Vermont, Delaware, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 5,642 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Annie
The name Annie originated from the Hebrew name Hannah, which means "grace" or "favor." It first appeared in the Old Testament of the Bible, where Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel. The name Hannah was later Latinized to Anna and became popular in early Christianity.
One of the earliest recorded references to the name Annie comes from the medieval English ballad "The Nut-Brown Maid," written around the 15th century. The ballad features a character named Annie, who represents a virtuous and loyal woman.
Annie gained widespread popularity in the 19th century, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom. Notable individuals named Annie from this period include Annie Oakley (1860-1926), the famous American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter, and Annie Besant (1847-1933), a British theosophist and women's rights activist.
In literature, one of the most famous Annies is the title character of the classic novel "Little Orphan Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916). The character later inspired the beloved comic strip and Broadway musical of the same name.
Other notable Annies throughout history include Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), an American astronomer who cataloged hundreds of thousands of stars, and Annie Leibovitz (born 1949), the renowned American portrait photographer known for her work with Rolling Stone magazine and Vanity Fair.
Annie has also been a popular name in various cultures around the world. In Scandinavian countries, it is derived from the Old Norse name Ånna, while in French-speaking regions, it is a diminutive of the name Anne.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Annie
People
Annie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Annie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Annie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Annie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 98,263 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Annie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 3,488 US residents.
Is Annie a common name?
We classify Annie as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 360,467 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Annie most popular?
The single biggest year for Annie was 1922, when 7,513 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Annie is about 53 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Annie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 115,895 people with the name Annie, or 38.37 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #487 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Annie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Annie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Annie appears almost entirely female. Of the 115,909 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Annie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Annie is White at 40.9%. The next largest groups are Black (36.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (13.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Annie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Annie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.9% (47,366 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Annie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Annie a female name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Annie in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Annie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Annie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Annie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Annie?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Annie at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.