Atiyah
A feminine Arabic name meaning "gift" or "present".
Name Census estimates that about 230 living Americans carry the first name Atiyah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Atiyah today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Atiyah births was 2001 (12 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Atiyah. 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 Atiyah with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
230
~ 1 in 1,490,236 Americans
Peak year
2001
12 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2022 SSA rank
#13,797
Tracked since 1980
Census
Atiyah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 216 people with the first name Atiyah, which placed it at #36,618 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
#36,618
National first-name rank
People counted
216
216 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
79.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Atiyah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Atiyah is Black at 79.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (7.4%) and White (5.1%). 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 Atiyah 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 Atiyah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American79.2% · 171
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.4% · 16
- White5.1% · 11
- Two or more races4.6% · 10
- Hispanic or Latino2.8% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 2
Popularity
Atiyah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Atiyah from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 80 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Atiyah 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 Atiyah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Atiyah
The given name Atiyah is of Arabic origin, derived from the word 'Atiyyah', which means 'gift' or 'present'. It is a masculine name that has been in use for centuries in the Arab world and among Muslim communities worldwide.
The earliest known historical reference to the name Atiyah can be found in ancient Arabic literature and poetry. One notable example is the famous 9th-century Arab poet, Atiyah al-Jazari, who was renowned for his mastery of the Arabic language and his contributions to literary criticism.
In the realm of religion, the name Atiyah has been associated with several prominent figures throughout Islamic history. One such individual was Atiyah ibn al-Aswad, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who participated in the early Muslim conquests and played a significant role in the spread of Islam.
During the medieval period, the name Atiyah gained popularity among Arab scholars and intellectuals. One notable bearer of this name was Atiyah al-Himsi, a renowned 13th-century mathematician and astronomer from Syria who made significant contributions to the fields of optics and trigonometry.
Moving forward in time, the 19th century saw the rise of Atiyah ibn Ghaith al-Khalili, a prominent Arab poet and litterateur from Palestine. His works were highly influential in the revival of Arabic literature and the promotion of Arab cultural identity during the Ottoman era.
Another famous figure with the name Atiyah was Atiyah al-Abawi, a 20th-century Iraqi poet and political activist who played a significant role in the literary and nationalist movements of his time. He was born in 1898 and his works often reflected the struggles of the Iraqi people against colonialism and oppression.
In more recent times, the name Atiyah has been carried by notable figures such as Sir Michael Atiyah, a renowned British mathematician and Fields Medalist who made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of geometry and topology. He was born in 1929 and received numerous honors and awards throughout his illustrious career.
People
Atiyah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Atiyah 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
Atiyah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Atiyah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 230 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Atiyah 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 1,490,236 US residents.
Is Atiyah a common name?
We classify Atiyah as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 234 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Atiyah most popular?
The single biggest year for Atiyah was 2001, when 12 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Atiyah is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Atiyah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 216 people with the name Atiyah, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #36,618 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 Atiyah 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 Atiyah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Atiyah leans strongly female. 215 people counted with this name were female (96.8%), compared with 7 male bearers (3.2%). 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 Atiyah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Atiyah is Black at 79.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (7.4%) and White (5.1%). 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 Atiyah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Atiyah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.2% (171 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 Atiyah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Atiyah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Atiyah 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 Atiyah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Atiyah 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 Atiyah 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 are called Atiyah?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.