Prentiss
Recorded 1887–2024 · United States
Prentiss was most popular in 1951, when 50 American babies were given the name — ranking #2,234 that year. It was not recorded in 2025. Across 1880–2025 the Social Security Administration has recorded 2,789 people named Prentiss.
Prentiss over time
How old is the name Prentiss?
Prentiss first appears in Social Security Administration records in 1887, which makes it about 138 years old as a recorded American name. It has been recorded in 124 of the 139 years since.
How many people are named Prentiss?
The Social Security Administration has recorded 2,789 American births named Prentiss between 1880 and 2025. That is recorded US births, not a world population — it counts people issued a Social Security number at birth in the United States. Of those, roughly 1,683 are estimated to be alive today.
How many babies were named Prentiss in 2025?
Prentiss was not recorded in 2025. The SSA withholds any name given to fewer than five babies in a year, so fewer than five American babies were given it.
Is Prentiss getting more or less popular?
Prentiss is too rare for a direction to mean much. It averaged 7 births a year across 2021–2025 against 13 a year a decade earlier — at these counts a single baby moves the percentage, and any year under five births is withheld at source.
Measured on recorded births. American births overall have fallen since 2007, so most established names lose births over any recent decade — a name can shed births and still hold its rank. Compare the rank above, which is measured against the other names of the same year.
Is Prentiss a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Across the whole record Prentiss is a boy’s name — 2.3% of the 2,789 Americans given it were girls and 97.7% were boys. In births since 2016 it is 8% girls and 92% boys.
Counted from every US birth the Social Security Administration recorded under this name, so it reflects use rather than opinion. A name given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year is withheld at source and is not counted.
How old is someone named Prentiss?
Roughly 1,683 Americans named Prentiss are alive today — 60% of everyone ever recorded with the name. The median is 51 years old, and half are between 36 and 67. That is a wide band, the mark of a name in steady use across generations rather than a passing fashion.
An estimate, not a count. Recorded births are carried forward through the Social Security Administration’s 2023 period life table, by age and sex. That table describes mortality in one recent year, so it credits the oldest cohorts with today’s survival rather than the harsher rates they actually lived through — the further back a name peaked, the more this will overstate how many remain. It counts people issued a Social Security number at birth, not immigrants who arrived later.
Where Prentiss is most concentrated
How much more common the name is in each state than across the country as a whole.
Explore further
See Prentiss on the interactive charts
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Source: U.S.A. Social Security Administration. Years 1880–2025. namelegacy.org