Africa
Africa reached its high-water mark in 1972 at number 1,325, and has been recorded 1,042 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 10,917th. About 1,000 Africas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 39.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Africa
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,042
- Estimated living today
- 1,000
- Median age today
- 39
- Peak year
- 1972
- Best rank
- 1,325th
- Rank in 2025
- 10,917th
- First recorded
- 1969
How old the living Africas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,042 babies given the name since 1969, about 1,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1986 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Africas
- África de las Heras Gavilán (1909–1988)Spanish spy and intelligence agent
People named Africa with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Africa is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Africa is most concentrated in Georgia (8.7×), Illinois (4.1×), California (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1972
The most popular girls’ names the year Africa peaked:
Africa elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain girls | Africa | 10,199 | 65th |
| England and Wales girls | Africa | 27 | 3,936th |
| France girls | Africa | 5 | 1,725th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Africa among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Africa | — | 11 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Africa lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 16,381 women called Africa were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceuta | Africa | 315 | 7.605 | 9 |
| Melilla | Africa | 58 | 1.340 | 168 |
| Cádiz | Africa | 854 | 1.333 | 134 |
| Córdoba | Africa | 448 | 1.134 | 149 |
| Sevilla | Africa | 1,130 | 1.115 | 154 |
| Badajoz | Africa | 369 | 1.095 | 166 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.