Noach
A Hebrew masculine name meaning "rest" or "repose".
Name Census estimates that about 359 living Americans carry the first name Noach. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Noach today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Noach births was 2003 (24 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Noach. 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
359
~ 1 in 954,747 Americans
Peak year
2003
24 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,369
Tracked since 1992
Census
Noach in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 311 people with the first name Noach, which placed it at #28,739 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
#28,739
National first-name rank
People counted
311
311 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
89.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Noach
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Noach is White at 89.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.8%) and Black (1.9%). 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 Noach 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 Noach at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White89.7% · 279
- Hispanic or Latino4.8% · 15
- Black or African American1.9% · 6
- Two or more races1.9% · 6
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.6% · 5
Popularity
Noach: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Noach from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 158 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Noach remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Noach 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 Noach during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Noachs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Noach
The name Noach is a Semitic name with origins in the ancient Hebrew language. It dates back thousands of years to the region known as the Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped area spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt. The name is derived from the Hebrew word "noach," which means "rest" or "comfort."
Noach is most famously associated with the biblical figure Noah, the righteous man who built the ark and saved humanity and all the animals from the Great Flood, as described in the Book of Genesis. In the Hebrew Bible, Noah is portrayed as a devout man who walked with God and found favor in His eyes. The story of Noah and the ark is a central narrative in the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Noach can be found in the Hebrew Bible, where it is spelled נֹחַ (Noach) in the original Hebrew text. The name has remained in use throughout Jewish history, with notable figures such as Noach ben Avigdor, a 12th-century French Tosafist and rabbi.
In the Christian tradition, the name is often rendered as Noah, following the Greek and Latin transliterations of the Hebrew name. Saint Noah, a 4th-century Byzantine monk and saint, is one of the earliest recorded Christians to bear this name.
The name Noach has also been used by various prominent individuals throughout history. One notable example is Noach Norman Flatau, a Polish-Jewish mathematician and astronomer who lived from 1837 to 1890. Another is Noach Pryłucki, a 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian rabbi and scholar.
In the Islamic tradition, the name is often spelled as Nuh, following the Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew name. Nuh ibn Mudhir al-Qaysi, a 7th-century Arab commander and companion of the Prophet Muhammad, is one of the earliest recorded individuals with this name.
Other notable figures with the name Noach or its variants include Noach Leibowitz (1905-1994), an American Orthodox rabbi and Torah scholar, and Noach Nevelstein (1908-1994), a Dutch-Israeli artist and sculptor.
People
Noach + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Noach 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
Noach: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Noach?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 359 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Noach 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 954,747 US residents.
Is Noach a common name?
We classify Noach as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 362 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Noach most popular?
The single biggest year for Noach was 2003, when 24 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Noach is about 14 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Noach in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 311 people with the name Noach, or 0.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #28,739 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 Noach 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 Noach?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Noach leans strongly male. 310 people counted with this name were male (98.7%), compared with 4 female bearers (1.3%). 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 Noach?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Noach is White at 89.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.8%) and Black (1.9%). 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 Noach most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Noach in the 2020 Census, accounting for 89.7% (279 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 Noach in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Noach a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Noach 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 Noach still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Noach 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 Noach 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 have Noach as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many people share the name Noach on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.