Ramiyah
A feminine name of Arabic origin meaning "shooter of arrows".
Name Census estimates that about 1,051 living Americans carry the first name Ramiyah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Ramiyah today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ramiyah births was 2004 (106 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ramiyah. 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 Ramiyah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Ramiyah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 14 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.1K
~ 1 in 326,122 Americans
Peak year
2004
106 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,621
Tracked since 2003
Census
Ramiyah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 655 people with the first name Ramiyah, which placed it at #17,018 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
#17,018
National first-name rank
People counted
655
655 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
86.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ramiyah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ramiyah is Black at 86.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.3%) and Two or More Races (4.7%). 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 Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American86.7% · 568
- Hispanic or Latino5.3% · 35
- Two or more races4.7% · 31
- White2.1% · 14
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.6% · 4
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 3
Popularity
Ramiyah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ramiyah from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 440 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Ramiyah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ramiyahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. Florida, Georgia, Ohio recorded the most babies named Ramiyah, while Tennessee, Indiana, Louisiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 20 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ramiyah
The name Ramiyah is of Arabic origin and is derived from the root word "rami," which means "to throw" or "to shoot." It is a feminine name that has been in use for centuries in the Arab world.
In Islamic tradition, the name Ramiyah is often associated with the story of the Prophet Abraham and his wife Hagar. According to the Quran, when Abraham left Hagar and their son Ishmael in the desert, Hagar ran back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwah in search of water. Eventually, a spring emerged at the spot where Ishmael was striking the ground with his heel, and this spring became the well of Zamzam in Mecca.
The earliest recorded use of the name Ramiyah dates back to the 7th century CE, during the early years of the Islamic Golden Age. One of the earliest notable figures with this name was Ramiyah bint Shurahbil al-Hamdaniyyah, who lived in the 8th century CE and was a renowned poet and scholar.
Throughout history, several other notable women have borne the name Ramiyah. In the 11th century, Ramiyah bint Ahmad al-Qayruwaniyyah was a famous scholar of hadith (Islamic tradition) and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in Qayrawan, Tunisia. Another notable figure was Ramiyah bint Abi al-Qasim al-Baghdadiyyah, a 12th-century calligrapher and poet from Baghdad.
In the 13th century, Ramiyah bint Muhammad al-Mawsiliyyah was a renowned poet and scholar from Mosul, Iraq. She was known for her expertise in Arabic language, literature, and Islamic sciences.
More recently, in the 20th century, Ramiyah al-Husseini was a Palestinian activist and politician who played a significant role in the Palestinian national movement. She was born in 1905 and was a member of the prominent Husseini family of Jerusalem.
The name Ramiyah has maintained its popularity in the Arab world and among Muslim communities worldwide, with many parents choosing it for their daughters due to its rich cultural and religious significance.
People
Ramiyah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ramiyah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ramiyah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ramiyah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,051 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ramiyah 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 326,122 US residents.
Is Ramiyah a common name?
We classify Ramiyah as "Rare". It ranks above 90.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,061 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ramiyah most popular?
The single biggest year for Ramiyah was 2004, when 106 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 655 people with the name Ramiyah, or 0.22 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17,018 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 Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ramiyah appears almost entirely female. Of the 650 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Ramiyah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ramiyah is Black at 86.7%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.3%) and Two or More Races (4.7%). 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 Ramiyah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Ramiyah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 86.7% (568 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 Ramiyah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ramiyah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ramiyah 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 Ramiyah 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 are named Ramiyah?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Ramiyah at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.