Adonijah
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "The Lord is my master".
Name Census estimates that about 490 living Americans carry the first name Adonijah. It is a predominantly male name (94.8% of registrations). The average person named Adonijah today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Adonijah births was 2014 (33 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Adonijah. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Adonijah with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
490
~ 1 in 699,499 Americans
Peak year
2014
33 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,881
Tracked since 1982
Census
Adonijah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 410 people with the first name Adonijah, which placed it at #23,765 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#23,765
National first-name rank
People counted
410
410 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
48.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Adonijah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adonijah is Black at 48.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.5%) and White (15.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Adonijah described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Adonijah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American48.5% · 199
- Hispanic or Latino18.5% · 76
- White15.1% · 62
- Two or more races12.2% · 50
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.1% · 17
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 6
Gender
Gender distribution for Adonijah
Adonijah leans heavily male at 94.8% of total registrations, but 26 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Adonijah as a male name
- Ranked #5,881 in 2024
- 15 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (33 births)
Adonijah as a female name
- Ranked #17,343 in 2009
- 5 female births in 2009
- Peak: 1998 (6 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Adonijah leans strongly male. 348 people counted with this name were male (84.5%), compared with 64 female bearers (15.5%).
Popularity
Adonijah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Adonijah from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 207 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Adonijah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Adonijah by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Adonijah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Adonijahs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Adonijah
The name Adonijah has its origins in the Hebrew language. It is derived from the Hebrew words "Adonai" meaning "Lord" and "Yah" being a shortened form of the name Yahweh, the proper name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The name can be translated to mean "my lord is Yahweh."
Adonijah first appears in the biblical Old Testament as the name of the fourth son of King David. He attempted to claim the throne of Israel after his father's death, even though David had designated Solomon as his successor. Adonijah's rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, and he was pardoned by Solomon.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Adonijah outside of the Bible was in the 6th century BCE. An Aramaic inscription from the ancient city of Byblos (modern-day Lebanon) mentions a man named Adonijah who served as a servant or official in the local temple.
In the Christian New Testament, Adonijah is mentioned as one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew's genealogy.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Adonijah. One of the earliest was Adonijah ben Abraham, a 10th-century Jewish scholar and writer from Babylon who authored works on Hebrew grammar and biblical exegesis.
Another prominent figure was Adonijah Shoulson (c. 1600-1660), an English Hebraist and scholar who translated portions of the Hebrew Bible and authored works on Jewish history and customs.
In more recent times, Adonijah Wellesly Sampson (1857-1949) was a Canadian lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan from 1928 to 1934.
Adonijah Judson Burrill (1848-1918) was an American botanist and plant pathologist who made significant contributions to the study of plant diseases and their control.
Lastly, Adonijah Hendricks (1686-1748) was an American painter and engraver who was one of the earliest-known artists of African descent to work in the British colonies of North America.
People
Adonijah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Adonijah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Adonijah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Adonijah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 490 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Adonijah going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 699,499 US residents.
Is Adonijah a common name?
We classify Adonijah as "Very Rare". It ranks above 84.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 496 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Adonijah most popular?
The single biggest year for Adonijah was 2014, when 33 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Adonijah is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Adonijah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 410 people with the name Adonijah, or 0.14 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #23,765 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Adonijah in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Adonijah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Adonijah leans strongly male. 348 people counted with this name were male (84.5%), compared with 64 female bearers (15.5%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Adonijah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Adonijah is Black at 48.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.5%) and White (15.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Adonijah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Adonijah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.5% (199 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Adonijah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Adonijah a male name?
Yes, 94.8% of people registered as Adonijah in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Adonijah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Adonijah in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Adonijah can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Adonijah?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.