Anaiah
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "answered prayer" or "response from God".
Name Census estimates that about 3,115 living Americans carry the first name Anaiah. It is a predominantly female name (99.4% of registrations). The average person named Anaiah today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Anaiah births was 2024 (295 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Anaiah. 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 Anaiah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Anaiah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 12 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
3.1K
~ 1 in 110,033 Americans
Peak year
2024
295 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2024 SSA rank
#914
Tracked since 1983
Census
Anaiah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,840 people with the first name Anaiah, which placed it at #8,005 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
#8,005
National first-name rank
People counted
1.8K
1,840 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
40.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Anaiah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Anaiah is Black at 40.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (31.7%) and White (12.3%). 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 Anaiah 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 Anaiah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American40.8% · 750
- Hispanic or Latino31.7% · 584
- White12.3% · 226
- Two or more races8.9% · 164
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.1% · 94
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 22
Gender
Gender distribution for Anaiah
Out of the 3,144 babies given the name Anaiah since 1880, 99.4% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Anaiah as a male name
- Ranked #10,989 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2009 (6 births)
Anaiah as a female name
- Ranked #914 in 2024
- 289 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (289 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Anaiah leans strongly female. 1,775 people counted with this name were female (96.5%), compared with 64 male bearers (3.5%).
Popularity
Anaiah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Anaiah 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 1,286 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Anaiah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Anaiah 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 Anaiah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Anaiahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 23 states and territories. California, Florida, Texas recorded the most babies named Anaiah, while Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 81 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Anaiah
The name Anaiah is of Hebrew origin, derived from the Hebrew name Anayah, which means "God has answered" or "the Lord has answered." This name is believed to have emerged during the biblical era, likely around the time of the Old Testament.
The name Anaiah can be found in various ancient Hebrew texts, including the Bible. In the Book of Nehemiah, a man named Anaiah is mentioned as one of the leaders who helped rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Anaiah dates back to the 5th century BCE, when a Jewish scribe named Anaiah ben Azariah is mentioned in the Elephantine papyri, a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered in Egypt.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Anaiah. One of the most famous was Anaiah ben Shemaiah, a Jewish scholar and leader who lived in the 3rd century CE. He is renowned for his contributions to the Mishnah, the first major written collection of Jewish oral traditions.
Another significant figure was Anaiah ben David, a 12th-century Jewish philosopher and commentator from Provence, France. He wrote extensively on Jewish law and philosophy, and his works were highly influential during the Middle Ages.
In the 17th century, Anaiah Bevan was a Quaker leader and writer from Wales. He played a prominent role in the early Quaker movement and authored several religious tracts and pamphlets.
Moving to the 19th century, Anaiah Merrick was an American abolitionist and activist who fought against slavery in the United States. She was actively involved in the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people escape to freedom.
Lastly, Anaiah Shehadi was a Lebanese-American educator and author who lived in the early 20th century. She wrote several books on Arabic language and culture, contributing significantly to the study of Middle Eastern literature and history.
People
Anaiah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Anaiah 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
Anaiah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Anaiah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,115 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Anaiah 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 110,033 US residents.
Is Anaiah a common name?
We classify Anaiah as "Rare". It ranks above 95.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 3,144 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Anaiah most popular?
The single biggest year for Anaiah was 2024, when 295 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Anaiah is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Anaiah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,840 people with the name Anaiah, or 0.61 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,005 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 Anaiah 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 Anaiah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Anaiah leans strongly female. 1,775 people counted with this name were female (96.5%), compared with 64 male bearers (3.5%). 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 Anaiah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Anaiah is Black at 40.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (31.7%) and White (12.3%). 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 Anaiah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Anaiah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.8% (750 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 Anaiah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Anaiah a female name?
Yes, 99.4% of people registered as Anaiah in the SSA data are female. 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 Anaiah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Anaiah 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 Anaiah 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 people share the name Anaiah?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.