Enoch
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "dedicated or trained".
Name Census estimates that about 8,861 living Americans carry the first name Enoch. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Enoch today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Enoch births was 2023 (375 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Enoch. 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.
People living today
8.9K
~ 1 in 38,681 Americans
Peak year
2023
375 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#718
Tracked since 1880
Popularity
Enoch: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Enoch from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,771 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Enoch remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Enoch 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 Enoch during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Enochs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 39 states and territories. California, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Enoch, while New Mexico, North Dakota, Kansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 172 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Enoch
The name Enoch is of Hebrew origin, deriving from the Biblical Hebrew name חֲנוֹךְ (Chanokh). It is believed to have originated around the 6th century BC. The name is thought to mean "dedicated" or "initiated", stemming from the Hebrew root verb חנך (chanak), which means "to dedicate" or "to train".
Enoch is a prominent figure in the Book of Genesis, being the son of Jared and the father of Methuselah. He is described as walking with God and being taken away by God at the age of 365. This event is seen as a precursor to the concept of bodily assumption into heaven, which later became a significant part of Christian theology.
The name Enoch appears in various ancient texts and religious scriptures beyond the Hebrew Bible. In the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish apocryphal work, Enoch is portrayed as a great-grandfather of Noah and a recipient of divine revelations. The Qur'an also mentions Enoch, known as Idris, as a prophet and a righteous man.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Enoch was Enoch, the son of Cain, mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Another early figure was Enoch, the son of Reuben, who is mentioned in the Book of Chronicles.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Enoch. Here are five examples:
1. Enoch Powell (1912-1998), a British politician and classical scholar, known for his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech.
2. Enoch Arden (1623-1697), an English sailor whose long absence from home inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem of the same name.
3. Enoch Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), an English novelist and playwright, best known for his novels set in the Potteries district of Staffordshire.
4. Enoch Sontonga (1873-1905), a South African writer and composer who wrote the first stanza of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", later adopted as the national anthem of several African countries.
5. Enoch Pratt (1808-1896), an American philanthropist who donated funds to establish the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, one of the oldest free public library systems in the United States.
People
Enoch + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Enoch as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with E
Other first names starting with E with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Enoch: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Enoch?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8,861 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Enoch 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 38,681 US residents.
Is Enoch a common name?
We classify Enoch as "Rare". It ranks above 97.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 12,759 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Enoch most popular?
The single biggest year for Enoch was 2023, when 375 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Enoch is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Enoch a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Enoch 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.
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.