Agnes
Meaning
pure, holy
Goes by Aggie
Famously borne by Agnes Martin, whose faint hand-drawn grids turned a ruled line into something spiritual.
Name day: January 21 in the Roman calendar of saints (Saint Agnes of Rome).
The story
Agnes comes from the Greek hagne, pure, and its story begins with a thirteen-year-old: Agnes of Rome, martyred around the year 304 and remembered every January 21, when the Church blesses two lambs in her honor because her name sounds like agnus, the Latin for lamb. The pun has held for seventeen centuries; so has the name. In American records Agnes stood near the top of the charts in the 1890s, then spent the whole twentieth century sliding until, by the 1960s, it was scarce in American nurseries, keeping company with Mabel and Edith. And like them it has begun to stir again: a small but real return in the 2010s and 2020s as parents work through their great-grandmothers' address books. What they find is a name that has meant the same thing since antiquity, worn first by a girl who would not be moved.
On record since at least the 4th century: Saint Agnes of Rome.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Agnes peaked in the 1890s and the 1900s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
15,433 people · the #1,269 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 13,158 · median age 11
Among people named Agnes living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 4,673 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Agnes deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Agnes truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Agnes fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Nicknames for Agnes · Saint names for babies and confirmation · Names of great artists
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