Julius
A masculine name derived from the ancient Roman family name Iulius.
Name Census estimates that about 47,774 living Americans carry the first name Julius. It sits at #389 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Julius today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Julius births was 1918 (1,422 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Julius. 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 Julius with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Julius is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 410 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
48K
~ 1 in 7,174 Americans
Peak year
1918
1,422 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#389
Tracked since 1880
Census
Julius in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 40,005 people with the first name Julius, which placed it at #1,050 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
#1,050
National first-name rank
People counted
40K
40,005 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
13.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
40.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Julius
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Julius is Black at 40.5%. The next largest groups are White (27.5%) and Hispanic (18.1%). 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 Julius 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 Julius at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American40.5% · 16,193
- White27.5% · 11,012
- Hispanic or Latino18.1% · 7,227
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.7% · 2,674
- Two or more races5.7% · 2,293
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 606
Gender
Gender distribution for Julius
Out of the 84,261 babies given the name Julius since 1880, 99.5% 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.
Julius as a male name
- Ranked #389 in 2024
- 838 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1918 (1,416 births)
Julius as a female name
- Ranked #14,486 in 1993
- 5 female births in 1993
- Peak: 1926 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Julius appears almost entirely male. Of the 40,007 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Julius: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Julius from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 11,066 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Julius remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Julius 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 Julius during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Julius' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 49 states and territories. New York, Texas, California recorded the most babies named Julius, while Wyoming, New Hampshire, Idaho recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,527 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Julius
The name Julius has its origins in the ancient Roman civilization, deriving from the Latin word "iulius," which is believed to have stemmed from the word "ioulos," meaning "downy-bearded." This connection suggests that the name was initially associated with youth and vigor.
The name Julius gained significant prominence during the Roman Republic and Empire, with one of the most famous bearers being Gaius Julius Caesar, the renowned military leader and political figure who played a pivotal role in the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Caesar was born in 100 BCE and assassinated in 44 BCE.
Another notable historical figure with the name Julius was Julius Agricola, a Roman general and governor of Roman Britain during the 1st century CE. His military campaigns and administration contributed significantly to the expansion and consolidation of Roman control over the island of Great Britain.
In the realm of religion, the name Julius was also associated with several early Christian martyrs and saints. One such figure was Saint Julius the Veteran, a Roman soldier who was martyred during the Diocletian persecution in the early 4th century CE for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
The name Julius also found its way into the annals of ancient literature, appearing in works such as Virgil's Aeneid, where it is used as a poetic reference to the Julian family, which included Julius Caesar and his descendants.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, the name Julius maintained its popularity and prestige. Notable figures bearing this name include Julius II, who reigned as Pope from 1503 to 1513 and was a significant patron of the arts, commissioning works by artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael.
Another prominent figure was Julius Scaliger, a Renaissance scholar and philosopher born in 1484, who made significant contributions to the fields of philology, chronology, and the study of ancient texts.
As time progressed, the name Julius continued to be used across various cultures and regions, although its popularity waxed and waned in different periods. Prominent individuals bearing this name include Julius Erving, an American professional basketball player born in 1950, known for his iconic slam dunks and contributions to the sport.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Julius
People
Julius + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Julius 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
Julius: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Julius?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 47,774 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Julius 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 7,174 US residents.
Is Julius a common name?
We classify Julius as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 84,261 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Julius most popular?
The single biggest year for Julius was 1918, when 1,422 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Julius is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Julius in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 40,005 people with the name Julius, or 13.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,050 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 Julius 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 Julius?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Julius appears almost entirely male. Of the 40,007 people counted with this name, 99.6% 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 Julius?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Julius is Black at 40.5%. The next largest groups are White (27.5%) and Hispanic (18.1%). 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 Julius most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Julius in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.5% (16,193 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 Julius in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Julius a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Julius 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 Julius still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Julius 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 Julius 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 common is the name Julius?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.