Molly
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Long-established pet form of Mary, representing an altered version of the earlier pet form Mally
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mɑli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Molly is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- SESweden1 in 928(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 2.2K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 3.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 550 (measured from records)
- 1 in 928 (inferred from the name graph)
153,463 people, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Long-established pet form of Mary, representing an altered version of the earlier pet form Mally. The name is chiefly associated with Ireland, although it is not known to be Gaelic. It is at present somewhat out of fashion.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Molly counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #475 | 153,463 | 1 in 2.2K | 153K | Molly | 550 |
| GB United Kingdom | #414 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 62 | Molly | 255 |
| SE Sweden | #556 | 10,998 | 1 in 928 | 11K | Molly | 72 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈9,100 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Molly | 35 |
| AU Australia | #473 | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.2K | 78 | Molly | 197 |
| DK Denmark | — | 2,038 | 1 in 2.9K | 2K | Molly | 55 |
| IE Ireland | #281 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | 218 | Molly | 94 |
153,463 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Molly is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A woman or girl, especially of low status.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Molly är en engelsk smekform till → Mary. Namnet har varit ett av de mest populära de senaste decennierna. En känd namnbärare är artisten Molly Sandén (f. 1992). I den finlandssvenska almanackan 15 augusti.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
La que ama la gloria
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
Nube
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
English and Irish: long-established pet form of MARY , representing an altered version of the earlier pet form Mally . The name is chiefly associated with Ireland, although it is not Gaelic. It is at present somewhat out of fashion.
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Molly Piconb. 1898USAmerican actress (1898–1992)
- Molly Kazanb. 1906USAmerican writer
- Molly Petersb. 1942GBBritish actress and model (1942-2017)
- Molly Cheekb. 1950USAmerican actress
- Molly Shannonb. 1964USAmerican actress and comedian (born 1964)
- Molly Ringwaldb. 1968USAmerican actress and writer (born 1968)
- Molly Parkerb. 1972CACanadian actress
- Molly Simsb. 1973USAmerican actress
- Molly Quinnb. 1993USAmerican actress
- Molly Gordonb. 1994USAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 79 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 153K | #363 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 11K | #374 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 8.4K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 2K | #243 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.6K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 230 | #363 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 218 | #18 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present) | 2024 | 140 | #46 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2021 | 78 | #100 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 62 | #68 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2017 | 57 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 49 | #32 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Molly?
- In the etymology graph, Maria, Marie and Miriam are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Mary and Mae.
- Where does the name Molly come from?
- Long-established pet form of Mary, representing an altered version of the earlier pet form Mally. The name is chiefly associated with Ireland, although it is not known to be Gaelic. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Molly a male or female name?
- Molly is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Molly mean?
- Recorded meaning: Long-established pet form of Mary, representing an altered version of the earlier pet form Mally.
- In which country does Molly have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 153 thousand people named Molly, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled molly.
- Where is Molly most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Molly is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 928 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Molly?
- In the United States, the national register counted 153,463 people named Molly in 2020, about 1 in 2.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Molly compared with other names?
- In the United States, Molly is the 475th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Molly?
- A machine transcription gives /mɑli/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Molly?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mollyThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Molly” — the 475th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.