Pecola — girls' name

What the Data Says About Pecola

The Social Security Administration has registered 788 babies named Pecola between 1900 and 1987, spanning 88 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Pecola currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 1987. The name reached its historical peak in 1920, when 28 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Pecola performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 201 births during that ten-year window. Across the 9 decades of recorded activity, Pecola shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Georgia, which accounts for 82 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Alabama and Mississippi. In total, SSA state-level files list Pecola in 3 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Pecola in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 788 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.