Taliah
A feminine name of Aramaic origin meaning "young doe" or "dew from heaven".
Name Census estimates that about 3,315 living Americans carry the first name Taliah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Taliah today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Taliah births was 2009 (148 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Taliah. 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 Taliah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Taliah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 18 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
3.3K
~ 1 in 103,395 Americans
Peak year
2009
148 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,164
Tracked since 1976
Census
Taliah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,312 people with the first name Taliah, which placed it at #6,818 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
#6,818
National first-name rank
People counted
2.3K
2,312 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
58.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Taliah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Taliah is Black at 58.7%. The next largest groups are White (17.0%) and Hispanic (13.0%). 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 Taliah 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 Taliah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American58.7% · 1,358
- White17.0% · 394
- Hispanic or Latino13.0% · 301
- Two or more races8.6% · 199
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 35
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.1% · 25
Popularity
Taliah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Taliah from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 1,180 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Taliah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Taliah 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 Taliah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Taliahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 24 states and territories. Florida, California, New York recorded the most babies named Taliah, while Mississippi, Massachusetts, Connecticut recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 65 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Taliah
The name Taliah is a variation of the Hebrew name Talya, which means "dew from God" or "gentle rain." It is derived from the Hebrew word "tal," meaning "dew" or "moisture." The name Taliah has its roots in ancient Hebrew culture and is believed to have originated in the Middle East region.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Taliah can be found in the Old Testament of the Bible. In the book of Judges, there is a reference to a woman named Taliah who was the daughter of Caleb, a prominent leader and warrior in the tribe of Judah.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals bearing the name Taliah. One of the most famous was Taliah al-Nafusa, a 10th-century Arab poet and scholar from the city of Fez in modern-day Morocco. She was renowned for her literary works and her contributions to the field of poetry during the Islamic Golden Age.
Another notable figure was Taliah ibn Harun al-Rashid, a 9th-century princess and daughter of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who ruled the Islamic Empire from 786 to 809 CE. She was known for her intelligence and her patronage of the arts and sciences.
In the 13th century, there was a Jewish scholar and philosopher named Taliah ben Abraham, who lived in Spain during the height of the Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula. He was known for his writings on Jewish law and philosophy.
During the Renaissance period, there was an Italian Renaissance painter named Taliah Vecelli, who was born in the late 15th century in the city of Cadore, near Venice. She was renowned for her portraits and religious paintings, which were heavily influenced by the Venetian school of art.
More recently, in the 20th century, there was an American novelist and playwright named Taliah Marbury, who was born in 1919 in New York City. She was known for her works exploring themes of race, identity, and social justice, and was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance literary movement.
People
Taliah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Taliah 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
Taliah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Taliah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,315 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Taliah 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 103,395 US residents.
Is Taliah a common name?
We classify Taliah as "Rare". It ranks above 95.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 3,372 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Taliah most popular?
The single biggest year for Taliah was 2009, when 148 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Taliah is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Taliah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,312 people with the name Taliah, or 0.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,818 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 Taliah 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 Taliah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Taliah appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,315 people counted with this name, 100.0% 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 Taliah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Taliah is Black at 58.7%. The next largest groups are White (17.0%) and Hispanic (13.0%). 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 Taliah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Taliah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.7% (1,358 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 Taliah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Taliah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Taliah 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 Taliah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Taliah 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 Taliah 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 the name Taliah?
If you just want to know how many Americans are named Taliah, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.