Imanuel
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is with us".
Name Census estimates that about 338 living Americans carry the first name Imanuel. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Imanuel today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Imanuel births was 2004 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Imanuel. 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 Imanuel with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
338
~ 1 in 1,014,066 Americans
Peak year
2004
19 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,417
Tracked since 1984
Census
Imanuel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 383 people with the first name Imanuel, which placed it at #24,935 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
#24,935
National first-name rank
People counted
383
383 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
32.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Imanuel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Imanuel is Black at 32.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (32.1%) and White (16.7%). 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 Imanuel 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 Imanuel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American32.4% · 124
- Hispanic or Latino32.1% · 123
- White16.7% · 64
- Asian and Pacific Islander11.5% · 44
- Two or more races6.5% · 25
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 3
Popularity
Imanuel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Imanuel 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 135 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Imanuel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Imanuel 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 Imanuel 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 Imanuel
The name Imanuel has its origins in Hebrew and is a variation of the name Emmanuel, which means "God is with us." The name can be traced back to the Old Testament of the Bible, where it is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as a prophecy foretelling the birth of the Messiah.
In the New Testament, the name Emmanuel is given to Jesus Christ, as stated in the Gospel of Matthew. The Greek spelling of the name, Emmanouel, was later transliterated into Latin as Immanuel, which eventually led to the spelling variation Imanuel.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Imanuel was Imanuel ben Solomon, a 14th-century Italian Hebrew poet and scholar. He was born in Rome around 1270 and is known for his works in Hebrew poetry and biblical exegesis.
In the 16th century, Imanuel Tremellius, an Italian Renaissance scholar and Hebraist, gained prominence for his translations of the Bible from Hebrew into Latin. He was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1510 and died in 1580.
Another notable figure with the name Imanuel was Imanuel Velikovsky, a Russian-born pseudoscientist and author who proposed controversial theories about ancient history and the cosmos. He was born in 1895 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), and died in 1979 in the United States.
In the 20th century, Imanuel Kant, a German philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment, was a prominent bearer of the name. He was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1724 and died in 1804.
Imanuel Geiss, a German historian and political scientist, was also a notable figure. He was born in 1931 in Berlin and made significant contributions to the study of international relations and the history of diplomacy.
These are just a few examples of individuals throughout history who have carried the name Imanuel, a name with deep roots in religious and cultural traditions, and one that has been borne by scholars, philosophers, and other influential figures across various fields and time periods.
People
Imanuel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Imanuel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Imanuel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Imanuel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 338 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Imanuel 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 1,014,066 US residents.
Is Imanuel a common name?
We classify Imanuel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 342 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Imanuel most popular?
The single biggest year for Imanuel was 2004, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Imanuel is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Imanuel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 383 people with the name Imanuel, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,935 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 Imanuel 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 Imanuel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Imanuel appears almost entirely male. Of the 375 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 Imanuel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Imanuel is Black at 32.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (32.1%) and White (16.7%). 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 Imanuel most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Imanuel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 32.4% (124 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 Imanuel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Imanuel a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Imanuel 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 Imanuel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Imanuel 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 Imanuel 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 share the name Imanuel?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Imanuel at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.