Jeptha
A Hebrew name meaning "he will open" or "whom God sets free".
Name Census estimates that about 110 living Americans carry the first name Jeptha. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jeptha today is around 40 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeptha births was 1924 (15 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeptha. 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.
People living today
110
~ 1 in 3,115,949 Americans
Peak year
1924
15 babies that year
Average age
40
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,521
Tracked since 1883
Census
Jeptha in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 224 people with the first name Jeptha, which placed it at #35,741 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
#35,741
National first-name rank
People counted
224
224 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
83.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jeptha
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeptha is White at 83.0%. The next largest groups are Black (13.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.8%). 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 Jeptha 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 Jeptha at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White83.0% · 186
- Black or African American13.8% · 31
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.8% · 4
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 3
Popularity
Jeptha: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeptha from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 81 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Jeptha remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jeptha 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 Jeptha 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 Jeptha
The name Jeptha is a variant spelling of the Hebrew name Jephthah, which is found in the Bible's Book of Judges. It is derived from the Hebrew words "yiphtah" meaning "he opens" or "opener". The name Jephthah appears in the Old Testament as the name of a judge who led the Israelites against the Ammonites.
The biblical figure Jephthah is introduced as a mighty warrior from Gilead who was driven away by his brothers due to being the son of a prostitute. He later became a leader of the Israelite army and made a vow to God that if victorious in battle against the Ammonites, he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house upon his return. Tragically, this turned out to be his daughter, leading to the origin of an annual lamentation ceremony.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Jeptha was in the 16th century. Jeptha Shakespear was an English clergyman who lived from 1515 to 1582. Another early bearer of the name was Jeptha Root Simms, an American farmer and politician from Virginia who lived from 1806 to 1868.
In the 17th century, Jeptha Shakespear Pennington was an English Puritan minister who lived from 1628 to 1700. During the 18th century, Jeptha Atherton was an American soldier and politician from New Hampshire, born in 1737 and died in 1801.
A famous literary reference to the name comes from the 18th-century English poet and critic Samuel Johnson, who wrote the tragedy "Jephtha" in 1737, based on the biblical story. The name also appears in George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Jephtha", first performed in 1752.
People
Jeptha + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeptha 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
Jeptha: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeptha?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 110 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeptha 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 3,115,949 US residents.
Is Jeptha a common name?
We classify Jeptha as "Very Rare". It ranks above 65.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 290 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeptha most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeptha was 1924, when 15 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeptha is about 40 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jeptha in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 224 people with the name Jeptha, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #35,741 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 Jeptha 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 Jeptha?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeptha leans strongly male. 221 people counted with this name were male (97.4%), compared with 6 female bearers (2.6%). 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 Jeptha?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeptha is White at 83.0%. The next largest groups are Black (13.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (1.8%). 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 Jeptha most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jeptha in the 2020 Census, accounting for 83.0% (186 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 Jeptha in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jeptha a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jeptha 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 Jeptha still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jeptha 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 Jeptha 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 Jeptha?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.