Vashti
A feminine Persian name possibly meaning "beautiful woman" or "the best".
Name Census estimates that about 1,366 living Americans carry the first name Vashti. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Vashti today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Vashti births was 1922 (40 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Vashti. 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
1.4K
~ 1 in 250,918 Americans
Peak year
1922
40 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,006
Tracked since 1882
Popularity
Vashti: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Vashti from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 327 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Vashti 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 Vashti during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Vashtis live
The SSA's state-level files cover 8 states and territories. North Carolina, New York, California recorded the most babies named Vashti, while South Carolina, Florida, Virginia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 16 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Vashti
The name Vashti is of Persian origin, derived from the Old Persian word 'vashti', meaning 'best' or 'most beautiful'. It first appeared in ancient texts around the 5th century BCE, during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
One of the earliest known references to the name Vashti is found in the Biblical Book of Esther, where Vashti was the Queen of Persia and the first wife of King Ahasuerus (also known as Xerxes I). According to the story, Queen Vashti defied the King's order to appear before him and his guests, leading to her deposition and eventual replacement by Esther.
The name Vashti gained further recognition in the 17th century with the publication of the play 'Queen Vashti' by the English playwright Thomas Sackville in 1590. This play portrayed Vashti as a courageous and principled woman who stood up against her husband's unjust demands.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Vashti was Vashti Cromwell (1608-1648), the daughter of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Another notable person with this name was Vashti Bunyan (1675-1692), the daughter of the famous English writer and preacher John Bunyan, author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'.
In the 19th century, Vashti Lewis (1824-1912) was an African American educator and activist who founded the Vashti Industrial School in Thomasville, Georgia, one of the first schools for African American girls in the state. Vashti Vineyards, established in 1854, is one of the oldest wineries in South Africa and was named after Vashti, the wife of the founder, John Xaviere Munnik.
Another notable figure was Vashti McCollum (1888-1960), an American activist who challenged the religious instruction in public schools in the landmark Supreme Court case 'McCollum v. Board of Education' in 1948, which ruled that religious instruction in public schools was unconstitutional.
People
Vashti + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Vashti as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with V
Other first names starting with V with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Vashti: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Vashti?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,366 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Vashti 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 250,918 US residents.
Is Vashti a common name?
We classify Vashti as "Rare". It ranks above 91.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,343 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Vashti most popular?
The single biggest year for Vashti was 1922, when 40 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Vashti is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Vashti a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Vashti 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.
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.