Penelope
- Pronunciation
- [Pe-ne-lope]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Myth Name (Faithful Wife Of Odysseus)
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Penelope
Penelope descends from the Greek Pēnelopē, traditionally derived from pēnē (woof, weft, the threads woven crosswise on a loom) — yielding the gloss "weaver." An alternative Greek etymology connects the name to the duck genus pēnelops, but most scholarly readings prefer the weaving connection because of the name's mythological context. The name's Greek-mythological anchor is Penelope, wife of Odysseus and one of the central figures of Homer's Odyssey — famously waiting twenty years for her husband's return while warding off 108 suitors, and weaving (and unraveling each night) a burial shroud as a strategy to delay re-marriage.
Penelope's English-language usage was sparse for most of the past millennium, despite continuous classical literary reference. The name became fashionable in 17th-century England partly through Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591), in which the beloved character is widely identified with Penelope Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex.
The modern American Penelope surge is one of the most striking 21st-century naming events. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the top 25 by 2020 — driven partly by celebrity adoption (Tina Fey's daughter, Reese Witherspoon's character names) and partly by the broader return to long-form, classical, vowel-rich girls' names. Notable bearers include actress Penélope Cruz (Spanish, with the Spanish-language form). The name's appeal is its layered classicism: four flowing syllables, soft consonants, mythological pedigree, easy compatibility with multiple nicknames. Common nicknames Penny, Poppy, Nelly, and the rarer Pippa each open into distinct registers; international forms include Penélope (Spanish/Portuguese), Penelope (Italian/French, identical), and the original Pēnelopē.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Penelope
US Popularity History (2001–2025)
Annual US births named Penelope by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2019 with 6,733 girls named Penelope (girl rank #22 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #22 for girls (6,225 US births).
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 Penelope 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 Penelope the strongest states are Oregon, Arizona, California.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon | #13 | 919 |
| 2 | Arizona | #15 | 1,728 |
| 3 | California | #17 | 8,924 |
| 4 | Washington | #18 | 1,555 |
| 5 | Colorado | #20 | 1,134 |
| 6 | Alaska | #20 | 182 |
| 7 | Nevada | #21 | 588 |
| 8 | Illinois | #21 | 2,318 |
| 9 | Connecticut | #21 | 712 |
| 10 | Texas | #25 | 5,994 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #101 | 220 |
| 2 | South Dakota | #83 | 98 |
| 3 | Alabama | #76 | 478 |
| 4 | Louisiana | #72 | 484 |
| 5 | North Dakota | #61 | 135 |
| 6 | West Virginia | #59 | 220 |
| 7 | Tennessee | #54 | 927 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #54 | 369 |
| 9 | Georgia | #52 | 1,263 |
| 10 | Wyoming | #52 | 64 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Penelope in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Penelope
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Penelope.
- Penelope Cruz — Movie Actress (1974)
Looking for names like Penelope?
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 Penelope to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Penelope 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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