Flannery
A unisex Irish name derived from the surname Flannery, meaning "bloodred, fiery red".
Name Census estimates that about 560 living Americans carry the first name Flannery. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Flannery today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Flannery births was 2006 (23 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Flannery. 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.
People living today
560
~ 1 in 612,061 Americans
Peak year
2006
23 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,993
Tracked since 1980
Census
Flannery in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 583 people with the first name Flannery, which placed it at #18,471 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
#18,471
National first-name rank
People counted
583
583 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
89.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Flannery
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Flannery is White at 89.7%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.8%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Flannery 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 Flannery at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White89.7% · 523
- Two or more races4.8% · 28
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 18
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 9
- Black or African American0.9% · 5
Popularity
Flannery: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Flannery from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 164 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Flannery 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 Flannery during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Flannerys live
Origin
Meaning and history of Flannery
The name Flannery is an Anglicized version of the Irish Gaelic name Ó Flannagáin. It originated in Ireland and can be traced back to the 10th century. The name is derived from the Gaelic words "flann," meaning red or ruddy complexion, and "gáin," meaning offspring or descendant.
Flannery was a common surname in medieval Ireland, particularly in the counties of Roscommon, Sligo, and Leitrim. It was later adopted as a given name, initially for boys and later for girls as well. The earliest recorded instances of the name Flannery as a first name date back to the late 18th century.
In Irish folklore, there are references to a legendary figure named Flannery, who was a warrior and chieftain in the ancient kingdom of Connacht. However, details about this historical figure are scarce and often intertwined with myth and legend.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Flannery was Flannery O'Connor, an American novelist and short story writer who lived from 1925 to 1964. She is renowned for her works that explored moral and religious themes in the Southern Gothic tradition.
Another notable Flannery was Flannery O'Connor, an Irish soprano opera singer who performed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was born in 1867 and made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London in 1888.
In the world of sports, Flannery O'Connor was a professional baseball player who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 20th century. He was born in 1884 and played from 1905 to 1916.
Flannery Gregg was an American actress and singer who appeared in various Broadway productions and films in the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in 1912 and had a successful career on stage and screen.
Flannery MacDonald was a Scottish politician and advocate for women's rights. She was born in 1866 and served as a member of the British Parliament from 1918 to 1922, becoming one of the first women to hold a seat in the House of Commons.
People
Flannery + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Flannery as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with F
Other first names starting with F with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Flannery: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Flannery?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 560 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Flannery 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 612,061 US residents.
Is Flannery a common name?
We classify Flannery as "Very Rare". It ranks above 85.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 574 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Flannery most popular?
The single biggest year for Flannery was 2006, when 23 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Flannery is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Flannery in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 583 people with the name Flannery, or 0.19 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #18,471 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 Flannery 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 Flannery?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Flannery leans strongly female. 580 people counted with this name were female (97.6%), compared with 14 male bearers (2.4%). 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 Flannery?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Flannery is White at 89.7%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.8%) and Hispanic (3.1%). 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 Flannery most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Flannery in the 2020 Census, accounting for 89.7% (523 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 Flannery in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Flannery a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Flannery 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 Flannery still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Flannery 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 Flannery 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 Flannery?
You can see how many people have the name Flannery on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.