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Girls' name · 253,597 recorded births

Monica

#736 in the US in 2025

Where Monica stands

United States register · 1880–2025

#736girls’ names · US 2025

Monica was the 736th most registered girls' name in the United States in 2025, on 371 births.

peak 1979 · 6,585188019532025

Its moment was 1979, when 6,585 babies were given it. In 1 of the years between, the name fell under the 5-birth floor and the registrar published nothing — those years are the marks along the base of the chart, not gaps in the name's use.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

#736US rank, 2025 (girls)
371US births in 2025
#39its best US rank, in 1977
1979peak year — 6,585 births
251,274US births since 1880
2,143NZ births since 1901
180E&W births, 2019–2025
Saved in this browser only — no account, nothing sent anywhere.

How Monica's figures are worked out

  1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
  2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
  3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
  4. The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
  5. A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Monica was under the floor in 1 year of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000

Full methodology →

Monica in the United States

188019001920194019601980200020200.0219438
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 5-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Monica in the United States, 1880–2025

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been steady.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Monica in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Monica has been registered 2,143 times since 1901, peaking in 1996 with 56 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

1900192019401960198020002020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 10-BIRTH FLOOR0.0175350
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 10-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Monica in New Zealand, 1900–2025

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Monica in England & Wales

In England and Wales, Monica was registered 180 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2021 with 31 births. It ranked #1,229 for girls in 2025 on 26 births.

2020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 3-BIRTH FLOOR0.05.711
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 3-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Monica in England and Wales, 2019–2025

Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.

SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

US rank and births at each decade markSSA · JUL 2026
YearRankBirths
1880#7386
1890#64217
1900#54339
1910#44979
1920#461215
1930#521168
1940#407285
1950#2311,059
1960#1403,088
1970#566,188
1980#456,034
1990#764,453
2000#1671,991
2010#361887
2020#696404

<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.

Where in the United States

The states that registered Monica most often since 1880. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

StateBirths
California46,076
Texas31,291
New York14,497
Illinois12,795
Pennsylvania10,074
Ohio9,911
Florida8,587
Michigan8,576
New Jersey6,128
Louisiana5,339

Questions about Monica

How popular is the name Monica?

Monica ranked #736 for girls in the United States in 2025, on 371 births registered with the Social Security Administration.

When was Monica most popular?

Monica peaked in 1979, when 6,585 babies in the United States were given the name.

Is Monica rising or falling?

Measured as a share of all girls' births, Monica has been steady between 2016 and 2025.

Same sex, peaking within a few years of 1979, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026

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Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.