Jerimiah
A masculine Hebrew name meaning "appointed by God" or "Yahweh exalts".
Name Census estimates that about 4,860 living Americans carry the first name Jerimiah. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jerimiah today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jerimiah births was 2010 (250 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jerimiah. 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
4.9K
~ 1 in 70,526 Americans
Peak year
2010
250 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,719
Tracked since 1917
Popularity
Jerimiah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jerimiah from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 1,582 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
Jerimiah 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 Jerimiah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jerimiahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 30 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Jerimiah, while Iowa, Arkansas, Utah recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 80 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jerimiah
The name Jerimiah has its origins in Hebrew and is derived from the biblical name Yirmeyahu. This translates to "Yahweh has uplifted" or "Yahweh has appointed". The name gained widespread recognition through the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who authored the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations.
Jeremiah lived in the 7th century BCE and was one of the major prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He was a witness to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. His name has been consistently used throughout the ages, particularly among Jewish and Christian communities.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jerimiah can be found in the Book of Jeremiah, which is a part of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book details the life and prophecies of the prophet Jeremiah, who lived during the turbulent times of the Babylonian conquest of Judah.
Over the centuries, several notable individuals have borne the name Jerimiah. One of the most famous was Jeremiah Horrocks (1619-1641), an English astronomer who made significant contributions to the study of planetary transits. He was the first person to predict and observe the Transit of Venus across the Sun's disc in 1639.
Another prominent figure was Jeremiah Denton (1924-2014), an American naval aviator and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He became famous for blinking the letters "T-O-R-T-U-R-E" in Morse code during a televised interview, alerting the world to the mistreatment of American prisoners of war by their North Vietnamese captors.
In literature, Jeremiah Beaumont was a fictional character created by the English novelist Charles Dickens in his novel Little Dorrit. The character was a wealthy but miserly owner of a debtors' prison and a symbol of the oppressive nature of the prison system at the time.
Jeremiah Curtin (1835-1898) was an American ethnographer and linguist who made significant contributions to the study of Native American languages and cultures. He published numerous works on various tribes, including the Sioux, Pawnee, and Cheyenne.
Finally, Jeremiah Trist (1778-1856) was an American diplomat and politician who served as the first United States Consul to Havana, Cuba, and later negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848.
People
Jerimiah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jerimiah 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
Jerimiah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jerimiah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,860 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jerimiah 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 70,526 US residents.
Is Jerimiah a common name?
We classify Jerimiah as "Rare". It ranks above 96.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,049 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jerimiah most popular?
The single biggest year for Jerimiah was 2010, when 250 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jerimiah is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Jerimiah a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jerimiah 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.
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.