Monroe
Torn between Monroe and another name? Compare them side by side →
Meaning
surname, "mouth of the river Roe"
The story
Monroe is a Scottish surname that traces, a little unexpectedly, to Ireland: it means mouth of the Roe, the river in the north of Ireland the founding family is said to have come from. It carries two very American giants. President James Monroe, whose doctrine shaped a century of foreign policy, and Marilyn Monroe, the screen icon whose single surname became shorthand for glamour itself. That mix gives the name both gravity and sparkle. Chosen now for girls and boys alike and lifted by a wave of celebrity babies, Monroe is brand new as a first name in the United States and reads as current as it has ever been. Smooth, confident and a touch starry, Monroe hands a child a president, a legend and a surname that somehow sounds like the spotlight.
How popular is Monroe around the world?
In the United States, 4,346 babies were named Monroe between 2020 and 2025.
Monroe is on the official records of the United States, Scotland, England and Wales and Canada.
United States
1 in 5,000
In the United States, 4,346 babies were named Monroe between 2020 and 2025.
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Monroe peaked in the 2020s. In US birth records, Monroe went mostly to boys before the 2010s and mostly to girls in every decade since. In US birth records Monroe has stayed between 371 and 4,499 births in every decade since the 1950s: a name everyone knows and few children get.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Scotland
1 in 5,700
In Scotland, 8 girls named Monroe were registered in 2024, the 384th most common name among girls that year.
The count never rose above 8 in a year, too few to chart.
Births registered in Scotland; different spellings count separately but accents are merged at source, and any spelling under 3 in total is suppressed. Source: National Records of Scotland, babies' first names
England and Wales
1 in 9,400
In England and Wales, 38 girls named Monroe were born in 2025, the 922nd most common name among girls that year.
In England and Wales, 24 boys named Monroe were born in 2025, ranked 1,197th among boys that year.
share of that year’s name registrations
Birth registrations in England and Wales (not the whole UK); exact spellings are counted separately, and any spelling under 3 in a year is withheld at source. Source: Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales
Canada
1 in 10,000
In Canada, 29 girls named Monroe were born in 2024, the 934th most common name among girls that year.
share of that year’s name registrations
First given names from provincial and territorial vital statistics across Canada; any name-sex-year under 5 is excluded at source, and small Quebec counts carry a randomized adjustment made at source. Shares divide by Statistics Canada’s count of live births for the year; the 2024 count is preliminary. Source: Statistics Canada, first names at birth (table 17-10-0147-01)
Ireland
last on record 2022
Monroe is not on the 2025 record for Ireland, where names under 3 in a year are withheld at source.
The count never rose above 6 in a year, too few to chart.
Exact registered spellings from Irish vital statistics; any name under 3 in a year is withheld at source, and accented spellings (fadas) are recorded reliably only from 2018. Source: Central Statistics Office (Ireland), Irish babies' names
South Australia
last on record 2015
Monroe is not on the 2017 record for South Australia, whose registry publishes every name given that year.
The count never rose above 1 in a year, too few to chart.
Births registered in South Australia (not all of Australia) by first name and year of registration, 1944–2017, from the state’s Births, Deaths and Marriages registry, which publishes every name down to a single birth in capitals; a spelling its export repeats inside a year is counted once, and from 2018 only a top 100 is published, so the series ends at 2017. Source: Consumer and Business Services (South Australia), popular baby names
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Austria record for 1984 to 2025: Statistik Austria publishes every first name down to a single birth, so this name was not given there in those years (before 2010 the record covers babies with Austrian citizenship only). Not on Norway’s list: Statistics Norway lists only first names carried by 200 or more living people, so rarer names are not shown.
Keep exploring
Names like Monroe · Gender-neutral names · Names that switched sides · Familiar but never popular
The Monroe deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Monroe 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 Monroe fits with your family’s names and surname.
Does Monroe fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Monroe to your family’s tree →