Heru
Egyptian masculine name meaning "one who is above" or "the distant one".
Name Census estimates that about 244 living Americans carry the first name Heru. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Heru today is around 9 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Heru births was 2017 (27 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Heru. 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 Heru with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
244
~ 1 in 1,404,731 Americans
Peak year
2017
27 babies that year
Average age
9
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,962
Tracked since 1998
Census
Heru in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 242 people with the first name Heru, which placed it at #33,953 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
#33,953
National first-name rank
People counted
242
242 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
53.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Heru
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Heru is Black at 53.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (19.0%) and Hispanic (10.7%). 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 Heru 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 Heru at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American53.7% · 130
- Asian and Pacific Islander19.0% · 46
- Hispanic or Latino10.7% · 26
- Two or more races10.3% · 25
- White4.5% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.7% · 4
Popularity
Heru: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Heru from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 153 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Heru remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Heru 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 Heru during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Herus live
Origin
Meaning and history of Heru
The name Heru has its origins in the ancient Egyptian language. It was the name of one of the most important deities in the Egyptian pantheon, the falcon-headed god of kingship and the sky. The name is derived from the Egyptian word "hr," which means "the one who is above" or "the one who is distant."
The name Heru was first recorded in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts dating back to around 3100 BCE. It was the name given to the falcon-headed god who was later merged with the sun god Ra to form the composite deity Ra-Herakhty. Heru was depicted as a falcon or a man with a falcon's head, representing the celestial and divine aspects of kingship.
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Heru was the son of Osiris and Isis, and he was engaged in a eternal struggle against his uncle Seth, who had killed Osiris and usurped the throne. The myth of Heru's triumph over Seth symbolized the victory of order over chaos and the legitimate succession of kingship.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Heru can be found in the Pyramid Texts, which were inscribed on the walls of the pyramids of ancient Egyptian kings during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE). These texts contain spells and incantations that were intended to aid the deceased pharaoh in their journey to the afterlife.
Throughout Egyptian history, several pharaohs bore the name Heru, including Heru-em-akhet (c. 2000 BCE), Heru-khuf (c. 2600 BCE), and Heru-hor (c. 1080 BCE). Additionally, the name was popular among commoners and was often combined with other elements to form compound names, such as Heru-neter (meaning "Heru is a god") and Heru-sa-Aset (meaning "Heru, son of Isis").
Other notable historical figures with the name Heru include Heru-pa-khred (c. 2200 BCE), a powerful nomarch (provincial governor) during the Old Kingdom, and Heru-em-heb (c. 1350 BCE), a prominent military leader and pharaoh during the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom.
People
Heru + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Heru 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
Heru: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Heru?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 244 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Heru 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 1,404,731 US residents.
Is Heru a common name?
We classify Heru as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 246 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Heru most popular?
The single biggest year for Heru was 2017, when 27 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Heru is about 9 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Heru in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 242 people with the name Heru, or 0.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #33,953 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 Heru 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 Heru?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Heru leans strongly male. 240 people counted with this name were male (94.5%), compared with 14 female bearers (5.5%). 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 Heru?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Heru is Black at 53.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (19.0%) and Hispanic (10.7%). 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 Heru most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Heru in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.7% (130 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 Heru in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Heru a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Heru 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 Heru still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Heru 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 Heru 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 Heru?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.