Candace
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Candace is a female given name of ancient origin, meaning "queen mother" or "glowing"
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkændəs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Candace is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 4.5K
- IEIreland≈1 in 4.9K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 526 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.7K (inferred from the name graph)
≈240,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Candace is a female given name of ancient origin, meaning "queen mother" or "glowing." Associated with the powerful queens of ancient Ethiopia (Kush) and a notable biblical story, the name carries connotations of royalty, purity, and dignity. It gained popularity as a given name in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Candace, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Candace counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈240,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | Candace | 26 |
| US United States | #562 | 73,527 | 1 in 4.5K | 73K | Candace | 526 |
| CA Canada | #509 | ≈9,500 est. | ≈1 in 4K | 2 | Candace | 214 |
| GB United Kingdom | #748 | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | listed | Candace | 140 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Candace | 15 |
| IE Ireland | #344 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Candace | 23 |
| NZ New Zealand | #462 | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | 21 | Candace | 60 |
| GY Guyana | — | 283 | 1 in 2.7K | 283 | — | 9 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the gb-nisra-baby-names-ni register; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Candace is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The name Candace is a Latinized form of the Greek 'Kandakē,' which is derived from the Meroitic word 'kdke.' This was not a personal name but a royal title used for queens and queen mothers in the Kingdom of Kush, signifying a position of great authority and nobility.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Possibly “brilliant white” or “clarity”; name of Ethiopian queens in the Bible.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Nubian/Kush: royal title meaning 'queen mother'.
as a nameAfrican Names
? The hereditary name of a long line of queens of Ethiopia. One of them is mentioned in the Bible, when the apostle Philip baptizes ‘a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure’ (Acts 8:27).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A female given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Candace Hilligossb. 1935USAmerican actress
- Candace Pertb. 1946USAmerican neuroscientist (1946-2013)
- Candace Bushnellb. 1958USAmerican author
- Candace Cameronb. 1976USAmerican actress, producer, author, and talk show panelist, as well as star on "Full House" (born 1976)
- Candace Smithb. 1977USAmerican model
- Candace Kroslakb. 1978USAmerican actress
- Candace Hutsonb. 1980USAmerican actress
- Candace Chapmanb. 1983CACanadian soccer player
- Candace Parkerb. 1986USAmerican basketball player (born 1986)
- Candace Owensb. 1989USAmerican political commentator (born 1989)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 47 sources across 30 countries.
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Candace?
- In the etymology graph, Candice, Candi and Kandace are forms of the same name in other languages; Candy is a recorded short or pet form.
- Is Candace a male or female name?
- Candace is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- Where does the name Candace come from?
- Candace is a female given name of ancient origin, meaning "queen mother" or "glowing." Associated with the powerful queens of ancient Ethiopia (Kush) and a notable biblical story, the name carries con… Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- How do you pronounce Candace?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkændəs/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Candace mean?
- Recorded meaning: Candace is a female given name of ancient origin, meaning "queen mother" or "glowing."
- In which country does Candace have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 236 thousand people named Candace in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled candace.
- Where is Candace most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Candace is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 2.7 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Candace?
- In the United States, the national register counted 73,527 people named Candace in 2020, about 1 in 4.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Candace compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Candace is the 344th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Candace?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/candaceThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Candace” — the 344th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.