Novalee
Novalee was given to 261 girls in 2025, #977 among girls’ names; 4,567 Americans have been recorded with it since 1962 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 4,540 Americans named Novalee and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 7 years old and half are between 4 and 11.
Novalee dropped 234 places in 2025, the #5 drop among the girls’ top 1,000 of 2024.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Novalee by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Novalee mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Novalee is “a female given name.”
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Novalee?
#977 among girls’ names, 2025
Novalee rose from #1,150 in 2015 to #977 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 0.12 to 0.16 per 1,000.
379 babies in 2024, the peak
Novalee peaked in 2024, when 379 girls were given it, #743 among girls’ names. The 261 births of 2025 are 69% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 261 | #977 | 0.16 |
| 2024 | 379 | #743 | 0.23 |
| 2023 | 368 | #767 | 0.23 |
| 2022 | 344 | #818 | 0.21 |
| 2021 | 368 | #774 | 0.22 |
| 2020 | 335 | #811 | 0.21 |
| 2019 | 333 | #822 | 0.20 |
| 2018 | 351 | #780 | 0.21 |
| 2017 | 297 | #904 | 0.17 |
| 2016 | 288 | #951 | 0.16 |
Every recorded year (30)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 221 | #1,150 | 0.12 |
| 2014 | 169 | #1,375 | 0.09 |
| 2013 | 108 | #1,875 | 0.06 |
| 2012 | 87 | #2,183 | 0.05 |
| 2011 | 83 | #2,271 | 0.05 |
| 2010 | 57 | #2,999 | 0.03 |
| 2009 | 68 | #2,698 | 0.04 |
| 2008 | 56 | #3,077 | 0.03 |
| 2007 | 62 | #2,915 | 0.03 |
| 2006 | 45 | #3,542 | 0.02 |
| 2005 | 42 | #3,564 | 0.02 |
| 2004 | 49 | #3,157 | 0.03 |
| 2003 | 40 | #3,572 | 0.02 |
| 2002 | 56 | #2,733 | 0.03 |
| 2001 | 63 | #2,476 | 0.03 |
| 2000 | 13 | #7,909 | 0.01 |
| 1973 | 6 | #8,105 | under 0.01 |
| 1965 | 5 | #7,227 | under 0.01 |
| 1963 | 6 | #6,388 | under 0.01 |
| 1962 | 7 | #5,694 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Novalee a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Novalee has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 30 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Novalee: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Novalee, and how old are they?
4,540 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 4,567 Americans ever recorded as Novalee. The median Novalee alive today is 7 years old; half are between 4 and 11.
The 2020 Census counted 2,098 people named Novalee (2,088 women and girls, 10 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 2,578 born in the U.S. The Census count is 19% below that prediction. Possible reasons: people who give a short form or another name to the Census, and a survival estimate that can run high.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Baby Boomers | 1946-1964 | 11 |
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 10 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 714 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 3,800 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
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 Novalee born?
The states with the most babies named Novalee are Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, with 30% of its births recorded by state in 2025.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 33 | #896 | 0.9× |
| Ohio | 15 | #661 | 1.1× |
| Pennsylvania | 13 | #750 | 0.9× |
| Florida | 12 | #1,224 | 0.8× |
| Indiana | 11 | #605 | 1.3× |
| Georgia | 11 | #899 | 0.7× |
| California | 10 | #2,053 | 0.6× |
| New York | 9 | #1,490 | 0.7× |
| North Carolina | 9 | #1,038 | 0.7× |
| Kentucky | 9 | #491 | 1.3× |
Where Novalee is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Novalee is most over-represented in Indiana: since 1962 it was given 1.3 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 Novalee 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 7 names spelled alike, given to 6,130 babies since 1880, Novalee is the most given (75% of them). In 2025 it was given to 261 of their 370 babies (71%), again the most given.
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 Novalee
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 Novalee and names like it
- Compare Novalee and NovalieBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sNovalee peaked in 2024.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Novalee since 1910.
- The top names of 2024The year the most babies were named Novalee.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Novalee alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with NMost given first.