Monika
Monika is a girl's name that peaked in 1990, when it was the 783rd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 6,325th. About 9,300 Monikas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 38.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Monika
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 9,810
- Estimated living today
- 9,300
- Median age today
- 38
- Peak year
- 1990
- Best rank
- 783rd
- Rank in 2025
- 6,325th
- First recorded
- 1942
How old the living Monikas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 9,810 babies given the name since 1942, about 9,300 are alive — 95 in every hundred. Roughly 810 of them are children and 410 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1987 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 Latin
A less common spelling of Monica, used since the twentieth century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Monikas
- Monika Linkytė (born 1992)Lithuanian singer and songwriter
- Monika Kuszyńska (born 1980)Polish singer
- Monika Liu (born 1988)Lithuanian singer-songwriter
- Monika Soćko (born 1978)Polish chess player
- Monika Zehrt (born 1952)East German sprinter
- Monika Pyrek (born 1980)Polish athletics competitor
- Monika Brodka (born 1988)Polish singer
- Monika Maron (born 1941)German writer
People named Monika with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Monika is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Monika is most concentrated in Illinois (2.7×), California (2.2×), New Jersey (1.8×), New York (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1990
The most popular girls’ names the year Monika peaked:
Monika elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland girls | Monika | 16,971 birth registrations | 23rd |
| Norway girls | Monika | 4,077 | 53rd |
| Austria girls | Monika | 1,307 | 39th |
| France girls | Monika | 830 | 1,665th |
| England and Wales girls | Monika | 595 | 975th |
| Ireland girls | Monika | 77 | 314th |
| Belgium girls | Monika | 38 | 1,000th |
| Scotland girls | Monika | 19 | 675th |
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.
Monika: rank by region
In 2025, Monika was given 2 times or more in 13 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Monika | 152 | 5 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Monika | 143 | 3 |
| Lubelskie | Monika | 111 | 4 |
| Lubuskie | Monika | 139 | 2 |
| Łódzkie | Monika | 122 | 6 |
| Małopolskie | Monika | 141 | 8 |
| Mazowieckie | Monika | 116 | 21 |
| Podkarpackie | Monika | 105 | 7 |
| Podlaskie | Monika | 87 | 5 |
| Pomorskie | Monika | 135 | 6 |
| Śląskie | Monika | 117 | 11 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Monika | 95 | 4 |
| Wielkopolskie | Monika | 150 | 6 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Poland below 2 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.
Monika by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 428th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Monika 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 | Monika +1 spelling | 899 | 1,929 |
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 Monika lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,909 women called Monika 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Monika | 159 | 0.254 | 364 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Monika | 134 | 0.242 | 465 |
| Segovia | Monika | 19 | 0.241 | 418 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Monika | 194 | 0.189 | 506 |
| Palmas, Las | Monika | 110 | 0.186 | 578 |
| Bizkaia | Monika | 95 | 0.158 | 586 |
Listed in 40 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 12 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
Monika 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.