Antoinette
Feminine French diminutive of the medieval name Antonia meaning "priceless one".
Name Census estimates that about 39,434 living Americans carry the first name Antoinette. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Antoinette today is around 55 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Antoinette births was 1924 (1,333 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Antoinette. 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 Antoinette with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Antoinette is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 68 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1920s, recent registration numbers for Antoinette have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
39K
~ 1 in 8,692 Americans
Peak year
1924
1,333 babies that year
Average age
55
years old
1989 SSA rank
#2,882
Tracked since 1880
Census
Antoinette in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 46,135 people with the first name Antoinette, which placed it at #955 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
#955
National first-name rank
People counted
46K
46,135 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
15.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
51.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Antoinette
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Antoinette is White at 51.3%. The next largest groups are Black (34.8%) and Hispanic (8.8%). 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 Antoinette 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 Antoinette at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White51.3% · 23,673
- Black or African American34.8% · 16,058
- Hispanic or Latino8.8% · 4,037
- Two or more races2.6% · 1,215
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.6% · 758
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 394
Gender
Gender distribution for Antoinette
Out of the 78,732 babies given the name Antoinette since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Antoinette as a male name
- Ranked #5,657 in 1989
- 8 male births in 1989
- Peak: 1966 (8 births)
Antoinette as a female name
- Ranked #2,882 in 2024
- 57 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1924 (1,333 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Antoinette appears almost entirely female. Of the 46,137 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Antoinette: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Antoinette 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 11,590 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
Antoinette 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 Antoinette during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Antoinettes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 46 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, California recorded the most babies named Antoinette, while Montana, North Dakota, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,536 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Antoinette
The name Antoinette is a French feminine form of the Late Roman name Antonius, which itself derived from an old Roman family name of uncertain origin. The root "ant-" possibly meant "inestimable" or "priceless", while "onius" may relate to being constant or continuous. Alternatively, some suggest the name arose from a child's attempt to say "Antonius".
Antoinette gained popularity in France during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, spreading across Catholic Europe. A famous early bearer was Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was an unpopular sovereign who met an untimely end by the guillotine, sowing her name's reputation.
Another prominent Antoinette was the Baroque painter Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680). She founded a religious sect teaching the end of theological study in favor of waiting for God's illumination. Other notables include Antoinette Deshoulieres (1638-1694), a beloved French poet. Antoinette Feyre Grimaldi (1920-2011) was a French actress active in theater, film, and television from the 1930s to 1980s.
Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières (1638-1694) was a French poet admired by Molière, Jean de La Fontaine, and Charles Perrault. She wrote poems and plays satirizing hypocrisy among the upper classes. Her salon hosted cultural icons like Jean Racine and Philippe Quinault. Despite facing misogyny, Deshoulières enjoyed great renown.
Saint Antoinette Guzzo (1676–1767) was an Italian Catholic mystic venerated for her religious writings and charity work. She founded the Franciscan Sisters Oblates of the Most Holy Redeemer and Protectress of Maidens. Her spiritual guidance even influenced Benedict XIV, then Pope.
People
Antoinette + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Antoinette 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
Antoinette: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Antoinette?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 39,434 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Antoinette 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 8,692 US residents.
Is Antoinette a common name?
We classify Antoinette as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 78,732 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Antoinette most popular?
The single biggest year for Antoinette was 1924, when 1,333 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Antoinette is about 55 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Antoinette in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 46,135 people with the name Antoinette, or 15.28 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #955 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 Antoinette 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 Antoinette?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Antoinette appears almost entirely female. Of the 46,137 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Antoinette?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Antoinette is White at 51.3%. The next largest groups are Black (34.8%) and Hispanic (8.8%). 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 Antoinette most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Antoinette in the 2020 Census, accounting for 51.3% (23,673 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 Antoinette in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Antoinette a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Antoinette 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 Antoinette still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Antoinette 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 Antoinette 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 many people have the name Antoinette?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Antoinette at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.