Nou
Nou was last recorded in 2000, when 9 babies were given it; 408 Americans have been recorded with it between 1979 and 2000 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Nou by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Nou?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #10,497, in 2000; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
39 babies in 1991, the peak
Nou peaked in 1991, when 39 babies were given it (29 girls, #3,690 among girls’ names). It was not recorded in 2025.
Births by sex.
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 9 | #10,497 | under 5 | |
| 1999 | 7 | #12,302 | under 5 | |
| 1998 | 12 | #7,889 | under 5 | |
| 1997 | 13 | #7,163 | under 5 | |
| 1996 | 11 | #7,960 | under 5 | |
| 1995 | 20 | #4,961 | 10 | #5,780 |
| 1994 | 18 | #5,391 | under 5 | |
| 1993 | 34 | #3,328 | 5 | #9,737 |
| 1992 | 24 | #4,335 | 12 | #4,775 |
| 1991 | 29 | #3,690 | 10 | #5,390 |
Every recorded year (22)
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 23 | #4,334 | 7 | #6,946 |
| 1989 | 19 | #4,794 | 7 | #6,725 |
| 1988 | 31 | #3,200 | under 5 | |
| 1987 | 10 | #7,177 | under 5 | |
| 1986 | 18 | #4,480 | 5 | #7,497 |
| 1985 | 13 | #5,576 | under 5 | |
| 1984 | 10 | #6,623 | under 5 | |
| 1983 | 10 | #6,563 | under 5 | |
| 1982 | 11 | #6,232 | under 5 | |
| 1981 | 14 | #5,161 | under 5 | |
| 1980 | 11 | #6,198 | under 5 | |
| 1979 | 5 | #11,383 | under 5 |
Ranks: girls’ names and boys’ names ranked separately in each year’s SSA file; “under 5” is a year SSA did not list the name for that sex.
Is Nou a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 408 Americans recorded as Nou, 86% are girls and 14% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Nou: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Nou, and how old are they?
An estimated 397 Americans named Nou and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (97% of everyone recorded); the median is 35 years old and half are between 33 and 39. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,340 people named Nou (1,025 women and girls, 315 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 399 born in the U.S. The Census count is 3.4 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Nou rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Nou born?
The states with the most babies named Nou are California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, with 100% of its births recorded by state since 1910; Minnesota and Wisconsin are not among the ten states with the most births.
| State | Since 1910 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 158 | not ranked | 2.8× |
| Minnesota | 33 | not ranked | 4.1× |
| Wisconsin | 14 | not ranked | 1.7× |
Where Nou is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Nou is most over-represented in California: since 1979 it was given 2.8 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Nou with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 6 names spelled alike, given to 32,930 babies since 1880, Nou is the fifth most given (1.2% of them). In 2025 none of their 1,637 babies recorded by SSA was a Nou (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Nou
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Nou and names like it
- Compare Nou and NonaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1990sNou peaked in 1991.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Nou since 1910.
- The top names of 1991The year the most babies were named Nou.
- The names of the MillennialsMost people named Nou alive today were born 1981-1996.
- Names starting with NMost given first.