Talah
A feminine Arabic name meaning "rising, shining, or ascending light".
Name Census estimates that about 119 living Americans carry the first name Talah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Talah today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Talah births was 2002 (10 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Talah. 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 Talah with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
119
~ 1 in 2,880,289 Americans
Peak year
2002
10 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,285
Tracked since 1996
Census
Talah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 152 people with the first name Talah, which placed it at #44,992 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
#44,992
National first-name rank
People counted
152
152 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
60.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Talah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Talah is White at 60.5%. The next largest groups are Black (17.1%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.5%). 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 Talah 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 Talah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White60.5% · 92
- Black or African American17.1% · 26
- Asian and Pacific Islander10.5% · 16
- Two or more races7.9% · 12
- Hispanic or Latino3.9% · 6
Popularity
Talah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Talah 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 51 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2010s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Talah 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 Talah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Talah
The given name Talah has its origins in Arabic culture and language. It is derived from the Arabic word "tala'a" which means "to rise" or "to appear." The name is believed to have emerged during the early Islamic period, around the 7th century AD, when the Arabic language and culture spread across the Middle East and North Africa.
In Islamic tradition, the name Talah is often associated with positive connotations of emerging or shining. It has been used as a name for both males and females, although more commonly for males. The name's simplicity and meaningful etymology have contributed to its enduring popularity across various Arabic-speaking regions.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Talah can be found in the medieval Islamic texts of the 9th century. Abu Talah al-Qaisi, a renowned Arab poet and scholar from modern-day Iraq, was born in 825 AD and is considered one of the most prominent figures associated with this name during that era.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Talah. Talah ibn Khuzaymah (born circa 692 AD) was a revered companion of the Prophet Muhammad and a respected narrator of hadith (prophetic traditions) in early Islamic history. Another prominent figure was Talah ibn Ubaydullah (died 656 AD), a close companion of the Prophet and a participant in the early Muslim conquests.
During the Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled from 750 to 1258 AD, the name Talah was also associated with several influential figures. Talah ibn Tahir al-Naysaburi (born 822 AD) was a renowned Islamic scholar and hadith compiler, while Talah ibn Ahmad al-Nahwi (born 844 AD) was a prominent grammarian and linguist.
In more recent times, Talah has continued to be a name bestowed upon individuals across the Arab world. Talah Arslan (1912-1998) was a prominent Lebanese politician and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1963 to 1964. Talah Naji (born 1945) is an Iraqi novelist and writer known for his works exploring social and political themes.
While the name Talah has its roots in Arabic culture, it has also been adopted and adapted in various forms across other cultures and languages, further adding to its rich history and diversity of usage over the centuries.
People
Talah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Talah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Talah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Talah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 119 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Talah 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 2,880,289 US residents.
Is Talah a common name?
We classify Talah as "Very Rare". It ranks above 67.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 120 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Talah most popular?
The single biggest year for Talah was 2002, when 10 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Talah is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Talah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 152 people with the name Talah, or 0.05 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #44,992 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 Talah 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 Talah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Talah leans strongly female. 131 people counted with this name were female (88.5%), compared with 17 male bearers (11.5%). 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 Talah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Talah is White at 60.5%. The next largest groups are Black (17.1%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (10.5%). 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 Talah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Talah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 60.5% (92 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 Talah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Talah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Talah 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 Talah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Talah 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 Talah 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 Americans are named Talah?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.