Hannah
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor".
Name Census estimates that about 432,506 living Americans carry the first name Hannah. It sits at #52 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Hannah today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Hannah births was 2000 (23,112 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Taylor (427,796).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Hannah. 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 Hannah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Hannah is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 721 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
433K
~ 1 in 792 Americans
Peak year
2000
23,112 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2022 SSA rank
#52
Tracked since 1880
Census
Hannah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 402,716 people with the first name Hannah, which placed it at #117 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
#117
National first-name rank
People counted
403K
402,716 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
133.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Hannah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hannah is White at 81.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.2%) and Two or More Races (4.6%). 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 Hannah 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 Hannah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.0% · 326,144
- Hispanic or Latino6.2% · 25,041
- Two or more races4.6% · 18,683
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.6% · 18,367
- Black or African American3.1% · 12,453
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2,028
Gender
Gender distribution for Hannah
Out of the 462,368 babies given the name Hannah since 1880, 99.8% 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.
Hannah as a male name
- Ranked #10,169 in 2022
- 7 male births in 2022
- Peak: 2004 (103 births)
Hannah as a female name
- Ranked #52 in 2024
- 4,054 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2000 (23,087 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hannah appears almost entirely female. Of the 402,723 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Hannah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Hannah from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 159,023 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Hannah 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 Hannah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Hannahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Hannah, while Wyoming, District of Columbia, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 8,826 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Hannah
The name Hannah is derived from the Hebrew name Channah, which originated in ancient Israel around the 11th century BCE. Channah means "grace" or "favor" in Hebrew. It first appears in the biblical Book of Samuel, referring to the mother of the prophet Samuel. Hannah was a barren woman who prayed fervently for a child, and God granted her wish by allowing her to conceive Samuel.
The name gained wider usage after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century when it was revived as a biblical name among Protestants. One of the earliest recorded individuals with this name was Hannah Woolley, an English writer and domestic servant born around 1622. She authored books on household management and cookery.
In the 17th century, Hannah Callowhill Penn, born in 1671, was the second wife of William Penn, the founder of the Pennsylvania colony. She played a significant role in the settlement and development of Philadelphia.
Hannah Arendt, a German-American political philosopher and theorist, was born in 1906. She is renowned for her works on political theory, including the concept of "the banality of evil" in relation to the Holocaust.
Another notable figure was Hannah Duston, an English immigrant born in 1657, who became famous for her harrowing escape from Abenaki captors during King William's War in 1697. She killed and scalped ten of her captors, an event that made her a folk hero in New England.
Hannah Wilke, an American artist born in 1940, was known for her pioneering work in feminist art and her use of unconventional materials like chewing gum and latex. She explored themes of female sexuality and the objectification of women's bodies.
The name Hannah has remained popular throughout history and has been embraced by various cultures, particularly in the Western world. Its biblical origins and association with grace and favor have contributed to its enduring appeal across generations.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Hannah
People
Hannah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Hannah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Hannah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Hannah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 432,506 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Hannah 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 792 US residents.
Is Hannah a common name?
We classify Hannah as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 462,368 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Hannah most popular?
The single biggest year for Hannah was 2000, when 23,112 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Hannah is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Hannah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 402,716 people with the name Hannah, or 133.34 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #117 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 Hannah 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 Hannah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hannah appears almost entirely female. Of the 402,723 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Hannah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hannah is White at 81.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.2%) and Two or More Races (4.6%). 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 Hannah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Hannah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.0% (326,144 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 Hannah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Hannah a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Hannah 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 Hannah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Hannah 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 Hannah 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 Hannah?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.