Jeremiah
A masculine given name of Hebrew origin meaning "exalted by the Lord".
Name Census estimates that about 212,906 living Americans carry the first name Jeremiah. It sits at #93 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jeremiah today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeremiah births was 2010 (7,755 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Martin (210,454).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeremiah. 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 Jeremiah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jeremiah is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 690 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
213K
~ 1 in 1,610 Americans
Peak year
2010
7,755 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#93
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jeremiah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 157,205 people with the first name Jeremiah, which placed it at #355 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
#355
National first-name rank
People counted
157K
157,205 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
52.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
39.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jeremiah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeremiah is White at 39.8%. The next largest groups are Black (31.3%) and Hispanic (18.7%). 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 Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White39.8% · 62,504
- Black or African American31.3% · 49,170
- Hispanic or Latino18.7% · 29,324
- Two or more races6.6% · 10,444
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.5% · 3,914
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 1,849
Gender
Gender distribution for Jeremiah
Out of the 222,425 babies given the name Jeremiah since 1880, 99.7% 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.
Jeremiah as a male name
- Ranked #93 in 2024
- 3,702 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2010 (7,742 births)
Jeremiah as a female name
- Ranked #14,191 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (36 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeremiah appears almost entirely male. Of the 157,203 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Jeremiah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeremiah from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 66,887 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Jeremiah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jeremiahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Jeremiah, while Vermont, Wyoming, Rhode Island recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 4,271 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jeremiah
The name Jeremiah originated from the Hebrew language and culture. It is derived from the Hebrew name Yirmeyahu, which means "Yahweh has uplifted" or "appointed by Yahweh." The name dates back to ancient times, around the 7th century BC.
Jeremiah was the name of one of the major prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He lived during the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, before and during the Babylonian exile. The Book of Jeremiah, which records his prophecies and lamentations, is part of the Old Testament.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Jeremiah is found in the Hebrew Bible, referring to the prophet himself. However, the name was likely in use before that time, as it follows a common pattern of Hebrew names incorporating the name of God (Yahweh).
Throughout history, there have been several notable figures named Jeremiah. One of the most famous was Jeremiah of Libnah, a Jewish scholar and scribe who lived in the 9th century AD. He is known for his work in preserving and transmitting the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible.
Another prominent figure was Jeremiah Horrocks, an English astronomer who lived from 1619 to 1641. He is best known for being the first person to predict and observe the transit of Venus across the sun's disc in 1639.
Jeremiah Denton was an American naval aviator and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He was born in 1924 and famously blinked "torture" in Morse code during a televised interview in 1966, revealing the mistreatment of American prisoners of war.
Jeremiah Massey was an African American educator and civil rights activist who lived from 1828 to 1900. He was a prominent figure in the struggle for equal education rights for African Americans in the post-Civil War era.
Jeremiah Horrocks, the English astronomer mentioned earlier, was also a notable mathematician and theologian. He made significant contributions to the understanding of planetary motion and the development of calculus.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jeremiah
People
Jeremiah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeremiah 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
Jeremiah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeremiah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 212,906 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeremiah 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 1,610 US residents.
Is Jeremiah a common name?
We classify Jeremiah as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 222,425 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeremiah most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeremiah was 2010, when 7,755 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeremiah is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jeremiah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 157,205 people with the name Jeremiah, or 52.05 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #355 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 Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeremiah appears almost entirely male. Of the 157,203 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Jeremiah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeremiah is White at 39.8%. The next largest groups are Black (31.3%) and Hispanic (18.7%). 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 Jeremiah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jeremiah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 39.8% (62,504 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 Jeremiah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jeremiah a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 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 have Jeremiah as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many people share the name Jeremiah on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.