Valerie
A feminine name derived from the Latin word "valere" meaning "to be strong".
Name Census estimates that about 225,722 living Americans carry the first name Valerie. It sits at #147 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Valerie today is around 46 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Valerie births was 1959 (7,320 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Valerie. 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 Valerie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Valerie is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 693 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
226K
~ 1 in 1,518 Americans
Peak year
1959
7,320 babies that year
Average age
46
years old
2005 SSA rank
#147
Tracked since 1884
Census
Valerie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 226,028 people with the first name Valerie, which placed it at #247 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
#247
National first-name rank
People counted
226K
226,028 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
74.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Valerie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Valerie is White at 58.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (21.5%) and Black (14.4%). 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 Valerie 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 Valerie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.5% · 132,187
- Hispanic or Latino21.5% · 48,560
- Black or African American14.4% · 32,534
- Two or more races2.5% · 5,692
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.3% · 5,255
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 1,800
Gender
Gender distribution for Valerie
Out of the 271,690 babies given the name Valerie since 1880, 99.7% 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.
Valerie as a male name
- Ranked #11,391 in 2005
- 6 male births in 2005
- Peak: 1980 (26 births)
Valerie as a female name
- Ranked #147 in 2024
- 1,985 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1959 (7,304 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Valerie appears almost entirely female. Of the 226,036 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Valerie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Valerie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 56,738 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Valerie 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 Valerie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Valeries live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Valerie, while Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 5,254 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Valerie
The name Valerie has its origins in the Latin name Valeria, which was derived from the Roman family name Valerius. The name Valerius is believed to have originated from the Latin word "valere," meaning "to be strong" or "to be well."
In ancient Rome, the name Valeria was borne by several noble Roman families, including the Valerii, who were a prominent patrician family. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the writings of the Roman historian Livy, who mentions a Roman woman named Valeria in his historical work "Ab Urbe Condita" (From the Founding of the City).
During the Middle Ages, the name Valerie gained popularity in various European regions, particularly in France and England. In France, it was sometimes spelled as "Valière" or "Valière." One notable historical figure who bore this name was Valerie of Milan (c. 349 - c. 420), a Christian saint and martyr who was venerated in the Catholic Church.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have carried the name Valerie. One of the earliest was Valerie of Limoges (c. 591 - c. 619), a Merovingian princess and abbess who founded the Abbey of Arles-sur-Tech in present-day France. Another notable figure was Valerie of Burgundy (c. 1033 - c. 1115), a French noblewoman and countess consort of Savoy.
In the realm of literature, the name Valerie was used by the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer in his 14th-century work "The Canterbury Tales." One of the characters in the tale is named Valerie, although the name's significance is not explicitly stated.
Other famous individuals named Valerie include Valerie Solanas (1936 - 1988), an American radical feminist and author best known for her attempted assassination of Andy Warhol in 1968. Valerie Jarrett (born 1956) is an American businesswoman and former senior advisor to former President Barack Obama.
Valerie Harper (1939 - 2019) was an American actress best known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the television series "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spin-off "Rhoda." Valerie Plame Wilson (born 1963) is a former United States CIA officer whose cover was blown in 2003, leading to a high-profile political scandal.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Valerie
People
Valerie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Valerie 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
Valerie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Valerie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 225,722 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Valerie 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 1,518 US residents.
Is Valerie a common name?
We classify Valerie as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 271,690 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Valerie most popular?
The single biggest year for Valerie was 1959, when 7,320 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Valerie is about 46 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Valerie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 226,028 people with the name Valerie, or 74.84 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #247 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 Valerie 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 Valerie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Valerie appears almost entirely female. Of the 226,036 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 Valerie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Valerie is White at 58.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (21.5%) and Black (14.4%). 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 Valerie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Valerie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.5% (132,187 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 Valerie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Valerie a female name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Valerie 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 Valerie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Valerie 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 Valerie 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 share the name Valerie?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.