Valentina
From the Latin valentia, meaning strong, healthy, and brave.
Roughly 58,003 people in the United States go by the first name Valentina, which ranks #47 nationally when sorted by estimated living bearers. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Valentina today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Valentina births was 2024 (4,438 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Sidney (57,897).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Valentina. 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 Valentina with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Valentina is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 12 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
58K
~ 1 in 5,909 Americans
Peak year
2024
4,438 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2011 SSA rank
#47
Tracked since 1897
Census
Valentina in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 49,540 people with the first name Valentina, which placed it at #910 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
#910
National first-name rank
People counted
50K
49,540 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
16.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
63.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Valentina
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Valentina is Hispanic at 63.0%. The next largest groups are White (31.8%) and Black (1.8%). 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 Valentina 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 Valentina at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino63.0% · 31,199
- White31.8% · 15,759
- Black or African American1.8% · 894
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.7% · 849
- Two or more races1.3% · 639
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 200
Gender
Gender distribution for Valentina
Out of the 59,768 babies given the name Valentina since 1880, 100.0% 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.
Valentina as a male name
- Ranked #10,713 in 2011
- 7 male births in 2011
- Peak: 2011 (7 births)
Valentina as a female name
- Ranked #47 in 2024
- 4,438 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (4,438 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Valentina appears almost entirely female. Of the 49,540 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Valentina: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Valentina from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 27,225 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Valentina remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Valentina 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 Valentina during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Valentinas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 45 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Valentina, while South Dakota, Alaska, Mississippi recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,261 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Valentina
Valentina is a feminine given name of Latin origin, derived from the root "valens" meaning "strong" or "vigorous." It is closely related to the masculine name Valentinus and the Latin word "valentia," which translates to "strength" or "valor." The name traces its roots back to ancient Rome, where it was used as a personal name during the Roman Imperial period.
The earliest recorded use of the name Valentina can be found in various historical documents dating back to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. One notable example is Saint Valentina, a Christian martyr who lived in the 3rd century and was killed during the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Claudius II Gothicus. Her feast day is celebrated on April 14th in the Catholic Church.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Valentina remained relatively uncommon, but gained popularity during the Renaissance period. One of the earliest recorded instances of a prominent figure bearing the name was Valentina Visconti (1368-1408), a member of the powerful Visconti family who ruled Milan in the 14th and 15th centuries.
In the 16th century, the name Valentina appeared in several literary works, including the play "The Spanish Tragedy" by Thomas Kyd, where it was used as the name of a character. Around the same time, Valentina Cybo (1519-1589), an Italian noblewoman and member of the powerful Cybo family, also bore the name.
During the 18th century, the name gained further recognition with the birth of Valentina Semiramis Dolgorukova (1708-1743), a Russian princess and lady-in-waiting to the Empress Anna of Russia. She played a significant role in the political intrigues of the Russian court during her lifetime.
In the 19th century, one of the most notable figures with the name Valentina was the Russian ballerina Valentina Semyonova (1846-1868), who was a leading prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and renowned for her performances in classical ballets.
Another prominent Valentina from the 20th century was Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937), the first woman to fly in space. She was a Soviet cosmonaut who made history in 1963 when she became the first woman to go into space aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft.
People
Valentina + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Valentina as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with V
Other first names starting with V with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Valentina: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Valentina?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 58,003 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Valentina 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 5,909 US residents.
Is Valentina a common name?
We classify Valentina as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 59,768 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Valentina most popular?
The single biggest year for Valentina was 2024, when 4,438 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Valentina is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Valentina in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 49,540 people with the name Valentina, or 16.40 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #910 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 Valentina 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 Valentina?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Valentina appears almost entirely female. Of the 49,540 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Valentina?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Valentina is Hispanic at 63.0%. The next largest groups are White (31.8%) and Black (1.8%). 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 Valentina most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Valentina in the 2020 Census, accounting for 63.0% (31,199 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 Valentina in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Valentina a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Valentina 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 Valentina still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Valentina 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 Valentina 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 Valentina as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.