Millie
- Pronunciation
- [Mi-llie]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Strength: Determination.
- Origin
- French
About the Name Millie
Millie originated as an English short form of Mildred (Old English "gentle strength"), Millicent (medieval Italian/French "hardworking"), or various longer names containing the -mil- root. The name has been used continuously as a casual diminutive in English-speaking countries since the 19th century, transitioning from nickname to standalone first name in 21st-century American naming.
The contemporary American Millie surge is part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Hattie, Sadie, and Maggie. The name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2005 to the US top 200 girls' rank by 2018 and the top 100 by 2022. The name's appeal is its compact warm register — two short syllables, soft consonants, instantly readable, and the in-built friendly-vintage register that contrasts with longer formal names. The name reads as both classical and approachable.
Notable bearers include British actress Millie Bobby Brown (born 2004, Eleven in Netflix's Stranger Things from 2016 onward, which made her one of the most visible young actresses globally), American silent-film actress Mildred "Millie" Davis, and the fictional Millie of various contemporary children's books and films. Millie Bobby Brown's career has been the dominant cultural driver of the contemporary surge. Common nicknames are scarce since Millie is itself a nickname-shape — Mil, Millie-Bo, and the rare Em each occasionally appear; the longer formal Mildred or Millicent are sometimes used as Millie's official-document version. International variants are minimal since the name is essentially English-language; the related Italian Millicent appears occasionally.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Millie
US Popularity History (2009–2025)
Annual US births named Millie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 3,353 girls named Millie (girl rank #73 that year).
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Millie Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Millie the strongest states are Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wyoming | #38 | 27 |
| 2 | Utah | #52 | 644 |
| 3 | North Dakota | #76 | 94 |
| 4 | South Dakota | #88 | 72 |
| 5 | Montana | #100 | 95 |
| 6 | Idaho | #101 | 200 |
| 7 | Nebraska | #104 | 209 |
| 8 | Alabama | #109 | 422 |
| 9 | Arkansas | #111 | 261 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #112 | 349 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #483 | 160 |
| 2 | Florida | #453 | 538 |
| 3 | New York | #396 | 408 |
| 4 | Maryland | #382 | 149 |
| 5 | California | #373 | 1,016 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | #333 | 213 |
| 7 | Pennsylvania | #331 | 409 |
| 8 | Virginia | #308 | 326 |
| 9 | Nevada | #302 | 73 |
| 10 | Texas | #299 | 1,193 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Millie in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Millie?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Millie to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Millie against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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