Nehemie
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "comforted by the Lord".
Name Census estimates that about 261 living Americans carry the first name Nehemie. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Nehemie today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nehemie births was 2005 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nehemie. 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
261
~ 1 in 1,313,235 Americans
Peak year
2005
13 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,781
Tracked since 1986
Census
Nehemie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 406 people with the first name Nehemie, which placed it at #23,937 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
#23,937
National first-name rank
People counted
406
406 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
94.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nehemie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nehemie is Black at 94.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (2.0%) and Hispanic (1.7%). 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 Nehemie 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 Nehemie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American94.3% · 383
- Two or more races2.0% · 8
- Hispanic or Latino1.7% · 7
- White1.5% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2
Popularity
Nehemie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nehemie from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 80 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Nehemie remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nehemie 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 Nehemie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nehemies live
Origin
Meaning and history of Nehemie
The name Nehemie is a variant spelling of the Hebrew name Nehemiah. It originated in ancient Israel around the 5th century BC. The name is derived from the Hebrew words "neḥem" meaning "to comfort" and "Yah" which is a shortened form of the name of the Hebrew God Yahweh.
The name Nehemiah appears in the Bible's Old Testament book which bears his name, the Book of Nehemiah. This book records the memoir of a Jewish man named Nehemiah, who served as a cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I in the 5th century BC. Nehemiah led the rebuilding efforts of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Nehemiah was the biblical figure himself, from the 5th century BC. Another prominent Nehemiah was Nehemiah ben Hushiel, a medieval Jewish philosopher and commentator on the Torah, who lived in the 11th century AD.
In the 17th century, Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712) was an English plant anatomist and philosopher. He is considered one of the founders of the study of plant anatomy and physiology. Nehemiah Dodge (1679-1727) was an American Congregational minister and author in the early 18th century.
Nehemiah Adams (1806-1878) was a 19th-century American clergyman, theologian, and writer. He served as a pastor in Boston and wrote several influential works on religion and moral philosophy.
People
Nehemie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nehemie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nehemie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nehemie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 261 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nehemie 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 1,313,235 US residents.
Is Nehemie a common name?
We classify Nehemie as "Very Rare". It ranks above 77.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 266 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nehemie most popular?
The single biggest year for Nehemie was 2005, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nehemie is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nehemie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 406 people with the name Nehemie, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #23,937 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 Nehemie 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 Nehemie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nehemie leans strongly female. 334 people counted with this name were female (84.1%), compared with 63 male bearers (15.9%). 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 Nehemie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nehemie is Black at 94.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (2.0%) and Hispanic (1.7%). 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 Nehemie most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Nehemie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 94.3% (383 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 Nehemie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nehemie a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Nehemie in the SSA data are female. 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 Nehemie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nehemie 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 Nehemie 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 Nehemie?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Nehemie on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.