Julien
A masculine name of French origin meaning "young conqueror of the young world".
Name Census estimates that about 12,925 living Americans carry the first name Julien. It is a predominantly male name (98.3% of registrations). The average person named Julien today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Julien births was 2009 (507 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Julien. 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 Julien with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Julien is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 231 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
13K
~ 1 in 26,519 Americans
Peak year
2009
507 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#703
Tracked since 1888
Census
Julien in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 11,302 people with the first name Julien, which placed it at #2,290 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
#2,290
National first-name rank
People counted
11K
11,302 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
43.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Julien
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Julien is White at 43.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (27.6%) and Black (16.2%). 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 Julien 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 Julien at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White43.5% · 4,915
- Hispanic or Latino27.6% · 3,124
- Black or African American16.2% · 1,831
- Two or more races8.8% · 989
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.3% · 377
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 66
Gender
Gender distribution for Julien
Julien leans heavily male at 98.3% of total registrations, but 231 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Julien as a male name
- Ranked #703 in 2024
- 381 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2009 (500 births)
Julien as a female name
- Ranked #7,070 in 2023
- 16 female births in 2023
- Peak: 2023 (16 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Julien leans strongly male. 10,924 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 372 female bearers (3.3%).
Popularity
Julien: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Julien from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 4,360 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Julien remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Julien 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 Julien during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Juliens live
The SSA's state-level files cover 42 states and territories. California, New York, Florida recorded the most babies named Julien, while Nebraska, Delaware, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 249 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Julien
The name Julien is derived from the Roman family name Iulius or Julius, which traces its origins to the ancient Roman gens (clan) Iulia. The gens Iulia was a patrician family that rose to prominence during the Roman Republic, and one of the most renowned members was Gaius Julius Caesar.
The name Julius likely comes from the word "Iovilios," meaning "descendant of Iove" or Jupiter, the chief deity in Roman mythology. It has been suggested that the name may also be related to the Greek word "ioulos," meaning "downy-bearded," referring to the youthful appearance of the first bearer.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Julien can be found in the 4th century CE, when it was borne by Saint Julien de Brioude, a Christian martyr from Gaul (modern-day France). The name gained popularity in France during the Middle Ages, and several French kings bore the name, including Julien de Rieux (1238-1286) and Julien de Clermont-Tonnerre (1370-1416).
In the 12th century, Julien Garnier (c. 1120-1185) was a French Benedictine monk and writer who authored a Latin chronicle of the First Crusade. Another notable figure was Julien de Vézelay (c. 1075-1141), a French Benedictine monk and preacher who played a significant role in promoting the Second Crusade.
During the Renaissance, Julien de' Medici (1453-1519) was an Italian nobleman and co-ruler of Florence, known for his patronage of the arts and his role in the Pazzi conspiracy against his brother Lorenzo. In the realm of literature, Julien Pevelair (1674-1744) was a French playwright and satirist whose works criticized the excesses of the aristocracy.
In more recent times, Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751) was a French physician and philosopher who advocated a materialist view of the human mind, while Julien Sorel (1806-1880) was a French admiral and politician who served as the Prime Minister of France in 1877.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Julien
People
Julien + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Julien 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
Julien: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Julien?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12,925 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Julien 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 26,519 US residents.
Is Julien a common name?
We classify Julien as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 13,634 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Julien most popular?
The single biggest year for Julien was 2009, when 507 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Julien is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Julien in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 11,302 people with the name Julien, or 3.74 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,290 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 Julien 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 Julien?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Julien leans strongly male. 10,924 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 372 female bearers (3.3%). 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 Julien?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Julien is White at 43.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (27.6%) and Black (16.2%). 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 Julien most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Julien in the 2020 Census, accounting for 43.5% (4,915 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 Julien in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Julien a male name?
Yes, 98.3% of people registered as Julien 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 Julien still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Julien 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 Julien 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 Julien?
Find out how many Americans are named Julien on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.