Nicknames for Penelope
29 ideas for Penelope — the short forms people actually use, plus cute, funny and gamer versions. Copy any of them in one click.
- Penny the standard short form
- Pen the blunt clip
- Pennie the older spelling
- Poppy the affectionate P-form used in Britain
- Pip the quick, bright clip
- Nell the middle lifted out
- Lope the back clip, rare but real
- Pens the friend version
- Penélope the Spanish spelling
- Pénélope the French spelling
- Pinelopi the modern Greek form
- Popi the Greek affectionate form
- Penelopa the Polish and Russian form
- Pelo the Greek clipped form
- Penny-Bear the usual affectionate pattern
- Penny-Lou the rhyming family extension
- Pen-Pen doubled, used by younger siblings
- Popsy the nursery form of Poppy
- P initial only, in group chats
- Penny Lane the song joke, always made
- Pitstop the cartoon joke, for older friends
- Weaver what Odysseus wife did for twenty years
- Penny-Rose the standard compound
- Nelly the affectionate form of the middle clip
- Copper the follow-on joke to Penny
- Pene Penelope, cut where people naturally stop saying it.
- Pe-pe The opening sound of Penelope, doubled.
- Phantom Penelope Shares the "P" sound with Penelope.
- Peachy Penelope Shares the "P" sound with Penelope.
About the name Penelope.
For twenty years the wife of Odysseus holds off a house full of suitors by weaving a shroud she unpicks every night. That trick made her a byword for patience and cunning at once, and the Greeks themselves argued about her name: it may come from pene, thread, which fits the story suspiciously well, or from penelops, a kind of duck. English use dates to the Renaissance and was always thinner than the fame of the character suggests. American numbers had a small blip in the 1960s, then collapsed. The return since 2010 has been sharp, and it is now a top thirty regular.
Four syllables, all of them light, with the stress on the second and a rhythm that skips rather than marches. It is playful for a name out of Homer. Penny drags it firmly into the everyday, which some parents want and others resist, and Pen is the compromise most bearers settle on.
Most popular around 2020. Based on US birth records.
- Origin
- Greek
- Meaning
- thread, or a duck
- Syllables
- Pe·nel·o·pe
- Used as
- a girls’ name
Penelope around the world.
These are the real forms Penelope takes in other languages, which often make excellent nicknames in their own right.
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Penélope
Spanish
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Pénélope
French
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Pinelopi
Greek
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Penelope
Italian
Famous people called Penelope.
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Penelope Cruz
Spanish Academy Award winner
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Penelope Lively
British Booker Prize novelist
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Penelope Fitzgerald
English novelist, won the Booker
Questions about the name Penelope
What are the nicknames for Penelope? +
Penny is the historic default, though its coin sense makes some parents avoid it. Pen is the neat modern compromise. Poppy has emerged recently as a sideways option, and Nell is used by households borrowing from the Eleanor tradition. Pip appears occasionally.
How many syllables does Penelope have? +
Four, said puh-NEL-uh-pee, with the stress on the second. The final e is pronounced, which catches out readers who assume it is silent as in envelope. Spanish and French keep the same four syllables and put the stress in the same place.
What does Penelope mean? +
Two candidates, neither settled. One traces it to pene, meaning thread or weft, which matches her famous loom. The other points to penelops, a duck, and an old story about the infant Penelope being rescued from the sea by seabirds.
Is Penelope popular now? +
Very. It reentered the American top hundred in 2013 after decades outside it and has climbed into the top thirty since, helped along by a well-known Spanish actress and by the general revival of long vintage names. Britain uses it far less.