Pamela
Pamela is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 88 births. Its best rank was 10th, in 1953.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 880.01% of girls
- Peak year
- 195427,362 births
- Best rank
- #10in 1953
- Since 1895
- 596,378people given the name
The story in the numbers
594,992 girls have been named Pamela in the United States since 1895, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1954, with 27,362 births — 1.4% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 88 births in 2024, against 27,362 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1959, and the 1950s alone account for 40%. It has spent 87 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 39 of them in the top 100 and 1 in the top 10.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 1,386 boys have also been given it, 0.23% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Pamela | |
|---|---|---|
| 1890s | 11 | |
| 1900s | 11 | |
| 1910s | 150 | |
| 1920s | 627 | |
| 1930s | 1,873 | |
| 1940s | 73,121 | |
| 1950s | 237,395 | |
| 1960s | 181,938 | |
| 1970s | 58,038 | |
| 1980s | 25,744 | |
| 1990s | 8,393 | |
| 2000s | 5,255 | |
| 2010s | 1,916 | |
| 2020s | 520 |
In 1954, its biggest year
Pamela was the 12th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1954 were Mary, Linda, Deborah, Patricia and Susan. See all of 1954.
Names that rose and fell with Pamela
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Sherylpeak 1957
- Pamalapeak 1958
- Valindapeak 1954
- Gaylapeak 1954
- Lynnpeak 1956
- Vikipeak 1958
- Vickypeak 1957
- Teresiapeak 1956
Other spellings in the data
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.