Jason
A masculine name derived from Greek mythology, meaning "healer" or "to cure".
Name Census estimates that about 993,104 living Americans carry the first name Jason. It sits at #148 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Jason today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jason births was 1977 (55,949 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jason. 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 Jason with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jason is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 5,029 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1970s, recent registration numbers for Jason have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
993K
~ 1 in 345 Americans
Peak year
1977
55,949 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#148
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jason in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 898,646 people with the first name Jason, which placed it at #32 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
#32
National first-name rank
People counted
899K
898,646 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
297.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jason
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jason is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.7%) and Black (6.2%). 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 Jason 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 Jason at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.6% · 679,214
- Hispanic or Latino9.7% · 86,729
- Black or African American6.2% · 55,876
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.2% · 37,804
- Two or more races3.6% · 32,792
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 6,231
Gender
Gender distribution for Jason
Out of the 1,054,860 babies given the name Jason since 1880, 99.5% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Jason as a male name
- Ranked #148 in 2024
- 2,448 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1977 (55,636 births)
Jason as a female name
- Ranked #16,321 in 2022
- 5 female births in 2022
- Peak: 1977 (313 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jason appears almost entirely male. Of the 898,652 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Jason: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jason from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 465,224 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jason 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 Jason during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jasons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Jason, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 20,592 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jason
The name Jason originated from the ancient Greek Iason, which is derived from the verb iaomai, meaning "to heal." It first appeared in Greek mythology, where Jason was the leader of the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. The earliest known reference to the name dates back to the 8th century BC in Hesiod's epic poem, the Theogony.
In Greek mythology, Jason was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos in Thessaly. He was sent on a dangerous mission by his uncle Pelias to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis, guarded by a dragon. With the help of the sorceress Medea, Jason succeeded in his quest and eventually returned to claim the throne of Iolcos.
The name Jason was later adopted by the Romans, who spelled it as Iason or Iaso. It became popular in the Christian tradition, as it was associated with the healing powers of the name's Greek root. Saint Jason, a disciple of Saint Paul, is celebrated in the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jason was in the 6th century BC, with the Athenian statesman Jason of Pherae. Another notable figure was Jason of Cyrene, a Jewish historian from the 2nd century BC, who wrote a history of the Maccabean Revolt.
In the Middle Ages, the name Jason was relatively rare, but it saw a resurgence during the Renaissance period. One famous bearer of the name was Jason de Mayno (1435-1519), an Italian jurist and professor of law at the University of Pavia.
In the modern era, several notable individuals have borne the name Jason. These include Jason Lee (1803-1845), an American Methodist missionary and founder of the city of Salem, Oregon; Jason Robards (1922-2000), an American actor who won two Academy Awards; and Jason Kidd (born 1973), a former NBA player and current head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
Other famous Jasons throughout history include Jason Voorhees, the fictional villain from the Friday the 13th horror film series; Jason Bourne, the protagonist of the Bourne novels and films; and Jason Mendoza, a character from the television series The Good Place.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jason
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Jason Alexander
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Jason Allison
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Jason Altmire
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Jason Bateman
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Jason Bay
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Jason Behr
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Jason Biggs
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Jason Blake
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Jason Connery
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Jason Friedberg
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Jason Gildon
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Jason Hanson
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Jason Isaacs
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Jason Isringhausen
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Jason Jennings
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Jason Johnson
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Jason Kendall
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Jason Kidd
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Jason Larue
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Jason Lee
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Jason Lewis
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Jason London
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Jason Mewes
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Jason Mraz
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Jason Olive
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Jason Patric
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Jason Phillips
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Jason Priestley
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Jason Reitman
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Jason Richardson
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Jason Robards
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Jason Schmidt
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Jason Schwartzman
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Jason Spezza
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Jason Statham
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Jason Terry
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Jason Tyner
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Jason Williams
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Jason Witten
People
Jason + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jason as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Jason: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jason?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 993,104 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jason 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 345 US residents.
Is Jason a common name?
We classify Jason as "Very Common". It ranks above 100% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,054,860 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jason most popular?
The single biggest year for Jason was 1977, when 55,949 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jason is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jason in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 898,646 people with the name Jason, or 297.54 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #32 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 Jason 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 Jason?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jason appears almost entirely male. Of the 898,652 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Jason?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jason is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.7%) and Black (6.2%). 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 Jason most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jason in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.6% (679,214 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 Jason in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jason a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Jason 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 Jason still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jason 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 Jason 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 Jason?
See how many people share the name Jason on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.