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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Jerimiah with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Jerimiah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,602 people with the first name Jerimiah, which placed it at #4,170 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
#4,170
National first-name rank
People counted
4.6K
4,602 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
40.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jerimiah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jerimiah is White at 40.1%. The next largest groups are Black (30.7%) 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 Jerimiah 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 Jerimiah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White40.1% · 1,846
- Black or African American30.7% · 1,412
- Hispanic or Latino18.7% · 859
- Two or more races7.3% · 334
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.0% · 91
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 60
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.
How common was Jerimiah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,602 people with the name Jerimiah, or 1.52 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,170 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 Jerimiah 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 Jerimiah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jerimiah appears almost entirely male. Of the 4,603 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 Jerimiah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jerimiah is White at 40.1%. The next largest groups are Black (30.7%) 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 Jerimiah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jerimiah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.1% (1,846 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 Jerimiah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Jerimiah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jerimiah 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 Jerimiah 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 share the name Jerimiah?
You can see how many people share the name Jerimiah on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.