Lorraine
Lorraine is a girl's name that peaked in 1928, when it was the 39th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,043rd. About 92,000 Lorraines are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lorraine boys named Lorraine
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 210,845
- Estimated living today
- 92,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1928
- Best rank
- 39th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,043rd
- First recorded
- 1882
- Girls / boys
- 209,910 / 935
How old the living Lorraines are
born that year still alive today
Of the 210,845 babies given the name since 1882, about 92,000 are alive — 44 in every hundred. Roughly 2,500 of them are children and 59,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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 a place name
from Old French Loherraine, from loherenc (“Lotharingian”); compare la-eme Lotharingia (ultimately named for Lothair II, who ruled it); compare German Lothringen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lorraines
- Lorraine Bracco (born 1954)American actress
- Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)African-American playwright and author
- Lorraine Toussaint (born 1960)Trinidadian actress
- Lorraine Gary (born 1937)American actress
- Lorraine Fenton (born 1973)athletics competitor
- Lorraine Crapp (born 1938)Australian swimmer, Olympic gold medallist, former world record-holder
- Lorraine Moller (born 1955)New Zealand distance runner
- Lorraine Downes (born 1964)New Zealand beauty pageant contestant
People named Lorraine with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lorraine is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lorraine is most concentrated in Vermont (3.1×), North Dakota (3.1×), Maine (2.9×), New Hampshire (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1928
The most popular girls’ names the year Lorraine peaked:
Lorraine elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland girls | Lorraine | 8,045 | 14th |
| France girls | Lorraine | 4,360 | 281st |
| Scotland girls | Lorraine | 3,189 | 27th |
| New Zealand girls | Lorraine | 1,675 | 26th |
| England and Wales girls | Lorraine | 341 | 661st |
| Belgium girls | Lorraine | 81 | 518th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Lorraine | 4 | 301st |
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.
Lorraine: rank by region
In 2001, Lorraine was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Lorraine | 455 | 5 |
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.
Lorraine 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 | Lorraine | — | 29 |
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 Lorraine lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 262 women called Lorraine 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Lorraine | 68 | 0.066 | 1,089 |
| Málaga | Lorraine | 46 | 0.050 | 1,167 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Lorraine | 19 | 0.034 | 2,054 |
| Almería | Lorraine | 12 | 0.032 | 1,728 |
| Palmas, Las | Lorraine | 16 | 0.027 | 2,679 |
| Murcia | Lorraine | 17 | 0.021 | 1,914 |
Listed in 9 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 43 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
Lorraine 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.