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The first name 
Persephone

Persephone is a first name for girls.

Persephone is a common name for girls!

The name Persephone 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, Persephone ranks 946. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Persephone. If you polled the whole US population – children, adults and seniors – you’d find less than one in 10,000 to be named Persephone.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Persephone

What does the name 
Persephone mean?

The name Persephone appears in Greek mythology. The origin and meaning of this name are unknown, but linguists have speculated that it is connected with rare Indo-European words that would give the meaning ‘thresher of grain’. This would make sense, since Persephone lives in the human world for half the year and causes spring and summer, then descends into the underworld for half a year and is responsible for fall and winter.

An alternative name... for the goddess Persephone is Kore, which means 'maiden'.

Persephone -
keeping with the times

Persephone is a fairly recent phenomenon. In the past, the name wasn't really on the radar of expectant parents. Then, unexpectedly, Persephone cried out for attention, reaching its peak in popularity at #624 in our SmartGenius statistics in the year 2022. People over 50 probably didn't have classmates named Persephone, for there were many years in which not a single parent chose this first name for their daughter. Although it also has never been in the top 100 of most popular first names, Persephone seems to have been in vogue for a while, especially since the beginning of the new millennium.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Persephone was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Persephone -
special, but at home in many states

You may not know anyone named Persephone, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 35 states are home to women and girls named Persephone. (To be fair, a given name is only included in a state’s official statistics if there are at least five people with that name living in that state – so it’s entirely possible that there are still a few women and girls named Persephone living in one state or another. If your name is Persephone and you live outside of the states highlighted on the map, please let us know so we can refine our statistics even further). And while the first name is present in many states, it is still not one of the popular ones. In Arizona, which has the most people named Persephone relative to the population, you still have to ask 19,956 women and girls their names before you hear Persephone as an answer just once.

Persephone has 10 letters 
and begins with a P

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter P is quite rare as an initial letter for girls' names: only 1.6% of all common girls' names in the US begin with a P, which means that this initial occurs only about half as often as the other letters on average. Nevertheless, P is by no means the rarest initial. While A, S and M are the most common first letters of girls' names, Q, X and U are the least common initials of feminine first names.

With ten letters, the name Persephone is obviously a particularly long first name used in the U.S.: only 1.8% of all common first names have exactly ten letters. 98% of all first names are shorter, while only 0.6% of all boys’ and girls’ names need more than ten letters. 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 since 1.6% of all girls’ names begin with a P, this initial occurs less than half as often as the other letters on average. By the way, of the comparatively few girls' names that begin with a P, Patricia is currently the most common.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Persephone

If your name is Persephone 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...

This is how you spell the name Persephone

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Persephone, you can simply say:

Pig

Elephant

Rocket

Sun

Elephant

Pig

Hat

Orange

Nut

Elephant

This is how the name Persephone is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Persephone in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Persephone

Persephone

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Persephone

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Persephone is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

P
E
R
S
E
P
H
O
N
E

Have you ever waved the name Persephone

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.

P
E
R
S
E
P
H
O
N
E

Beeping like crazy...

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. Persephone sounds like this: