The English and French name Florence goes back to the Latin names Florentius and Florentia, a masculine and a feminine name. They are derived from the word ‘florens’ for ‘prosperous, flourishing’. Modern Italian forms are Fiorentina and Fiorenza.
Florence is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Florence isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Florence ranks 913. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Florence. In the entire USA, approximately 247,220 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Florence. That is 0.07 % of all living Americans.
The English and French name Florence goes back to the Latin names Florentius and Florentia, a masculine and a feminine name. They are derived from the word ‘florens’ for ‘prosperous, flourishing’. Modern Italian forms are Fiorentina and Fiorenza.
For many decades,... until the 1930s, Florence was one of the most popular girl's names in the US.
History tends to focus on the most famous and best. But even those who play second fiddle leave their mark: Florence is one of those names without which the orchestra would be incomplete. In fact, Florence has reached the SmartGenius top ranking #6 more than once, although the last time was a long time ago, way back in the 19th century in 1899. But even though the peak of its popularity was more than 100 years ago, the name Florence has been given to newborn girls every year since records began. Florence is of exceptional enduring popularity, that conveys the classic vibes of the19th century.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Florence was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The popularity of the name Florence peaked a very long time ago, but the name has nevertheless arrived in the 21st century. In 2022, it ranked #559 in our statistics - perhaps a far cry from when your ancestors were children and Florence made it into the top ten more than once, but then again: traditional names often prove to be perennial favorites - so, maybe it's only a matter of time before Florence hits the top again.
There are only 537 different women’s names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Florence is one of them. However, Florence is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Hawaii seem to particularly fancy this name – the 1,674 women called Florence who live here are 0,379% of all female residents and push their name up to #51, easily placing it in the top 100 most common female names in Hawaii.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter F is quite rare as a first letter for girls' names: only 1.2% of all common girls' names in the US begin with an F. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With eight letters, the name Florence is long compared to other names. In fact, 14.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly eight letters. 78% of all first names are shorter, while only 8% of all boys’ and girls’ names use nine letters or even more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long with no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 1.2% of all girls' names begin with an F, this initial letter is significantly less common than the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are girls' names with F that are quite popular, the most common at present is Frances.
If your name is Florence and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Florence, you can simply say:
Fox
Lion
Orange
Rocket
Elephant
Nut
Cat
Elephant
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Florence
Florence
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
F
L
O
R
E
N
C
E
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
F
L
O
R
E
N
C
E
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Florence sounds like this:
