Javier
A Spanish masculine name meaning "new house" or "bright."
Name Census estimates that about 102,347 living Americans carry the first name Javier. It sits at #247 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 Javier today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Javier births was 2001 (2,646 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Javier. 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 Javier with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Javier is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 493 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
102K
~ 1 in 3,349 Americans
Peak year
2001
2,646 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#247
Tracked since 1917
Census
Javier in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 158,816 people with the first name Javier, which placed it at #351 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
#351
National first-name rank
People counted
159K
158,816 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
52.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
96.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Javier
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Javier is Hispanic at 96.4%. The next largest groups are White (1.7%) and Black (1.3%). 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 Javier 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 Javier at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino96.4% · 153,075
- White1.7% · 2,744
- Black or African American1.3% · 2,133
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.3% · 408
- Two or more races0.2% · 243
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 213
Gender
Gender distribution for Javier
Out of the 107,193 babies given the name Javier 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.
Javier as a male name
- Ranked #247 in 2024
- 1,435 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2001 (2,637 births)
Javier as a female name
- Ranked #16,199 in 2023
- 5 female births in 2023
- Peak: 1993 (25 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Javier appears almost entirely male. Of the 158,810 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Javier: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Javier from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 24,700 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Javier 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 Javier during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Javiers live
The SSA's state-level files cover 44 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Javier, while West Virginia, Wyoming, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,378 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Javier
Javier is a Spanish masculine given name derived from the ancient Basque name Xabier or Xavier, which ultimately traces its origins to the medieval Basque word "etcheberri" meaning "new house" or "new home." The name gained widespread popularity due to the veneration of St. Francis Xavier, a Navarrese Catholic missionary who traveled throughout Asia in the 16th century.
The name Javier first appeared in historical records during the early Middle Ages in the region of Navarre, situated in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France. As a prominent local noble family, the name Javier was associated with the Castle of Xavier, a fortified structure located near the village of Xavier in Navarre.
One of the earliest documented individuals with the name Javier was Juan de Javier, a 14th-century Navarrese nobleman who served as a Knight Hospitaller and played a role in the Reconquista, the centuries-long struggle to expel the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula.
The fame of St. Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta in 1506, significantly contributed to the widespread adoption of the name Javier throughout Spain and its colonial territories in the Americas. As one of the founding members of the Jesuit order, St. Francis Xavier embarked on extensive missionary journeys to India, Japan, and other parts of Asia, earning him the title of "Apostle of the Indies."
Another notable historical figure named Javier was Javier Mina, a Spanish military leader and revolutionary who fought against the French occupation of Spain during the Peninsular War in the early 19th century. Born in 1789, Mina later played a pivotal role in the Mexican War of Independence, supporting the rebel forces against Spanish colonial rule.
In the realm of literature, Javier Marías, a celebrated Spanish novelist and translator born in 1951, has gained international acclaim for his works, including "A Heart So White" and "Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me." His novels often explore themes of identity, memory, and the complexities of human relationships.
Javier Bardem, the Academy Award-winning Spanish actor born in 1969, is another prominent bearer of the name. Known for his roles in films such as "No Country for Old Men" and "Skyfall," Bardem has earned critical acclaim for his versatile performances and has become a respected figure in the international film industry.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Javier
People
Javier + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Javier 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
Javier: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Javier?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 102,347 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Javier 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 3,349 US residents.
Is Javier a common name?
We classify Javier as "Common". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 107,193 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Javier most popular?
The single biggest year for Javier was 2001, when 2,646 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Javier is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Javier in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 158,816 people with the name Javier, or 52.58 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #351 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 Javier 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 Javier?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Javier appears almost entirely male. Of the 158,810 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Javier?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Javier is Hispanic at 96.4%. The next largest groups are White (1.7%) and Black (1.3%). 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 Javier most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Javier in the 2020 Census, accounting for 96.4% (153,075 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 Javier in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Javier a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Javier 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 Javier still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Javier 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 Javier 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 named Javier?
Want to know how many people have the name Javier? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.