Fiona
Fiona is a girl's name that peaked in 2017, when it was the 180th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 470th. About 34,000 Fionas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Fiona boys named Fiona
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 33,964
- Estimated living today
- 34,000
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2017
- Best rank
- 180th
- Rank in 2025
- 470th
- First recorded
- 1942
- Girls / boys
- 33,959 / 5
How old the living Fionas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 33,964 babies given the name since 1942, about 34,000 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 22,000 of them are children and 120 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2012 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Scottish Gaelic
From Irish fionn (“fair, white”). In use before 1713. Popularized by James Macpherson (see 1765 quotation), and perhaps by the 19th-century Scottish writer William Sharp, who chose “Fiona Macleod” as his pen name.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Fionas
- Fiona Shaw (born 1958)Irish actress
- Fiona Apple (born 1977)American musician
- Fiona Graham (1961–2023)Australian anthropologist, geisha
- Fiona May (born 1969)British-born Italian long jumper
- Fiona Dourif (born 1981)American actress and producer
- Fiona Ferro (born 1997)French tennis player
- Fiona Gubelmann (born 1980)American actress
- Fiona Fullerton (born 1956)British actress and singer
People named Fiona with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Fiona is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Fiona is most concentrated in New Hampshire (2.4×), Massachusetts (2.3×), Washington (2.3×), Oregon (2.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2017
The most popular girls’ names the year Fiona peaked:
Fiona elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland girls | Fiona | 13,416 | 4th |
| France girls | Fiona | 11,310 | 104th |
| Scotland girls | Fiona | 10,574 | 3rd |
| New Zealand girls | Fiona | 6,039 | 17th |
| Switzerland girls | Fiona | 3,366 | 20th |
| England and Wales girls | Fiona | 2,904 | 160th |
| Belgium girls | Fiona | 1,457 | 85th |
| Italy girls | Fiona | 404 | — |
| Norway girls | Fiona | 376 | 206th |
| Austria girls | Fiona | 284 | 51st |
| Northern Ireland girls | Fiona | 212 | 66th |
| Poland girls | Fiona | 37 birth registrations | 319th |
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.
Fiona: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Fiona | 3,051 | 0.245% | 17th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Fiona | 289 | 0.066% | 77th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Fiona | 19 | 0.029% | 113th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Fiona | 7 | 0.188% | 9th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Fiona is most concentrated in Obwalden, where 0.46% of children were given it – 37 of them.
Fiona: rank by region
In 2024, Fiona was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Fiona | 654 | 7 |
In 2023, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Fiona appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (176th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Fiona by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 261 | 82nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Fiona 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Fiona | 1,728 | 2,305 |
| Finland girls | Fiona | 1,184 | 1,685 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Fiona lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 939 women called Fiona 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Girona | Fiona | 106 | 0.256 | 421 |
| Barcelona | Fiona | 387 | 0.127 | 605 |
| Balears, Illes | Fiona | 65 | 0.104 | 744 |
| Tarragona | Fiona | 42 | 0.096 | 849 |
| Lleida | Fiona | 14 | 0.063 | 1,076 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Fiona | 37 | 0.036 | 1,669 |
Listed in 20 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 32 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Fiona against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.