Guinevere
A feminine name of Welsh origin meaning "fair smooth ring".
Name Census estimates that about 3,863 living Americans carry the first name Guinevere. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Guinevere today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Guinevere births was 2022 (299 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Guinevere. 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 Guinevere with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Guinevere is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 15 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
3.9K
~ 1 in 88,728 Americans
Peak year
2022
299 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#947
Tracked since 1912
Census
Guinevere in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,506 people with the first name Guinevere, which placed it at #6,413 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
#6,413
National first-name rank
People counted
2.5K
2,506 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Guinevere
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Guinevere is White at 75.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.5%) and Two or More Races (7.4%). 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 Guinevere 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 Guinevere at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.1% · 1,881
- Hispanic or Latino9.5% · 238
- Two or more races7.4% · 186
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 94
- Black or African American3.6% · 89
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 18
Popularity
Guinevere: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Guinevere from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 1,390 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Guinevere 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 Guinevere during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Guineveres live
The SSA's state-level files cover 33 states and territories. California, Texas, Ohio recorded the most babies named Guinevere, while South Carolina, Montana, Connecticut recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 64 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Guinevere
The name Guinevere has its origins in the ancient Celtic language of Brittonic, spoken in what is now Great Britain during the 6th century AD. It is derived from the elements "ven" meaning fair or white, and "guern" meaning smooth or round, suggesting the name may have originally described a fair-skinned or beautiful woman. The spelling has evolved from earlier forms like Gwenhwyvar and Guanhumara.
Guinevere is most famously associated with the legendary Queen Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur in the mythical tales of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. These stories first appeared in written form in the histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century, drawing on much older Celtic folklore. Guinevere's famous affair with Arthur's knight Lancelot became a central part of the Arthurian romance tradition.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name was Gwenhwyar, wife of a 6th century British king named Chenedig. Her grave is marked with an inscribed stone found near Catterick in Yorkshire, England, dating to around 580 AD. Another early bearer was Guanhamara, described as the wife of King Idernat in the 7th century Breton hagiography Vita Samsonis.
The name saw a resurgence in popularity during the Victorian era fascination with Arthurian legends. Notable Guineveres include the British writer Guinevere Duffield (1874-1962), American socialite Guinevere Porter-Palmer (1888-1965), and Guinevere Estill (1909-1992), a prominent American soprano singer and opera director.
Other famous Guineveres are the French medieval historian Guinevere Paleologina (1281-1342), one of the first European female scholars, and Lady Guinevere Petrie (1865-1918), an influential English archaeologist and Egyptologist who worked alongside her husband Sir Flinders Petrie.
People
Guinevere + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Guinevere as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with G
Other first names starting with G with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Guinevere: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Guinevere?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,863 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Guinevere 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 88,728 US residents.
Is Guinevere a common name?
We classify Guinevere as "Rare". It ranks above 95.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,294 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Guinevere most popular?
The single biggest year for Guinevere was 2022, when 299 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Guinevere is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Guinevere in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,506 people with the name Guinevere, or 0.83 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,413 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 Guinevere 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 Guinevere?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Guinevere appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,514 people counted with this name, 99.4% 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 Guinevere?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Guinevere is White at 75.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.5%) and Two or More Races (7.4%). 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 Guinevere most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Guinevere in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.1% (1,881 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 Guinevere in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Guinevere a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Guinevere 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 Guinevere still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Guinevere 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 Guinevere 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 are called Guinevere?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.