Balthazar
Of Aramaic origin meaning "Lord of treasure" or "Baal's prince".
Name Census estimates that about 208 living Americans carry the first name Balthazar. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Balthazar today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Balthazar births was 2014 (15 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Balthazar. 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 Balthazar with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
208
~ 1 in 1,647,857 Americans
Peak year
2014
15 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,796
Tracked since 2001
Census
Balthazar in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 291 people with the first name Balthazar, which placed it at #30,113 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
#30,113
National first-name rank
People counted
291
291 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
50.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Balthazar
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Balthazar is Hispanic at 50.9%. The next largest groups are White (30.9%) and Black (7.9%). 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 Balthazar 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 Balthazar at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino50.9% · 148
- White30.9% · 90
- Black or African American7.9% · 23
- Two or more races5.5% · 16
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 3
Popularity
Balthazar: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Balthazar from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 111 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Balthazar remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Balthazar 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 Balthazar during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Balthazars live
Origin
Meaning and history of Balthazar
The name Balthazar has its origins in Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language spoken in the Middle East. It is derived from the Babylonian name Bel-shar-usur, which means "Bel (the god) protect the king". The name was popular among the Babylonians during the 6th-7th centuries BC.
In the Bible, Balthazar was one of the three wise men or Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. This reference in the New Testament contributed to the spread and popularity of the name among early Christians.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Balthazar Gérard, a Catholic fanatic who assassinated William the Silent, Prince of Orange, in 1584. The name gained further prominence in the 17th century with Balthasar Gracián, a Spanish Jesuit priest and philosopher who wrote influential works on ethics and rhetoric.
In the 18th century, Balthazar Denner was a renowned German painter known for his highly realistic portraits. Another notable figure was Balthazar Bekker, a Dutch minister and writer who challenged the belief in witchcraft and possession in his works.
The 19th century saw Balthazar Siemiątkowski, a Polish general who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and Balthazar Goldstein, a Polish-German chess master and one of the strongest players of his time.
More recently, Balthazar Getty was an American actor and member of the Getty family, known for his roles in films like Lord of the Flies and Lost Highway. Balthazar Bratt was also the name of a fictional villain in the Despicable Me animated film series.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Balthazar
People
Balthazar + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Balthazar as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Balthazar: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Balthazar?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 208 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Balthazar 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 1,647,857 US residents.
Is Balthazar a common name?
We classify Balthazar as "Very Rare". It ranks above 74.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 210 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Balthazar most popular?
The single biggest year for Balthazar was 2014, when 15 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Balthazar is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Balthazar in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 291 people with the name Balthazar, or 0.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #30,113 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 Balthazar 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 Balthazar?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Balthazar appears almost entirely male. Of the 285 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Balthazar?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Balthazar is Hispanic at 50.9%. The next largest groups are White (30.9%) and Black (7.9%). 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 Balthazar most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Balthazar in the 2020 Census, accounting for 50.9% (148 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 Balthazar in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Balthazar a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Balthazar 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 Balthazar still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Balthazar 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 Balthazar 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 Balthazar?
You can see how many people have the name Balthazar on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.