Spencer
Spencer is a boy's name that peaked in 1998, when it was the 84th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 360th. About 117,000 Spencers are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 27.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Spencer boys named Spencer
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 129,638
- Estimated living today
- 117,000
- Median age today
- 27
- Peak year
- 1998
- Best rank
- 84th
- Rank in 2025
- 360th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 5,707 / 123,931
How old the living Spencers are
born that year still alive today
Of the 129,638 babies given the name since 1880, about 117,000 are alive — 90 in every hundred. Roughly 27,000 of them are children and 4,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1998 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
An occupational surname from Middle English Spenser, Spencer, Spensier, from the common noun spenser (“spencer”), denoting someone who works in a spense (“spence”), or as a butler or steward.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Spencers
- Spencer Tracy (1900–1967)American actor
- Spencer Perceval (1762–1812)19th-century prime minister of the United Kingdom
- Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington (1674–1743)Prime Minister of Great Britain
- Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823–1887)American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, museum curator, and the 2nd Secretary of the Smithsonian
- Spencer Tunick (born 1967)American photographer
- Spencer Breslin (born 1992)American actor and musician
- Spencer Treat Clark (born 1987)American actor
- Spencer Cox (born 1975)18th Governor of Utah since 2021
People named Spencer with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Spencer is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Spencer is most concentrated in Utah (5.4×), Idaho (2.6×), Washington (2.0×), Oregon (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1998
The most popular boys’ names the year Spencer peaked:
Spencer elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Spencer | 8,631 | 90th |
| Scotland boys | Spencer | 420 | 160th |
| New Zealand boys | Spencer | 280 | 78th |
| France boys | Spencer | 265 | 1,369th |
| Ireland boys | Spencer | 149 | 280th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Spencer | 118 | 160th |
| England and Wales girls | Spencer | 79 | 2,340th |
| France girls | Spencer | 50 | 2,874th |
| Belgium boys | Spencer | 46 | 1,026th |
| Scotland girls | Spencer | 10 | 501st |
| Poland boys | Spencer | 8 birth registrations | 736th |
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.
Spencer: rank by region
In 2015, Spencer was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Spencer | 764 | 6 |
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.
Spencer 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 boys | Spencer | 13 | 27 |
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.
Related names
Spencer 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.