Xaviera
A feminine name of German origin meaning "bright."
Name Census estimates that about 669 living Americans carry the first name Xaviera. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Xaviera today is around 31 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Xaviera births was 1992 (29 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Xaviera. 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 Xaviera with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
669
~ 1 in 512,338 Americans
Peak year
1992
29 babies that year
Average age
31
years old
2024 SSA rank
#12,057
Tracked since 1973
Census
Xaviera in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 588 people with the first name Xaviera, which placed it at #18,347 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
#18,347
National first-name rank
People counted
588
588 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
48.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Xaviera
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Xaviera is Black at 48.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (27.6%) and White (11.1%). 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 Xaviera 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 Xaviera at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American48.5% · 285
- Hispanic or Latino27.6% · 162
- White11.1% · 65
- Two or more races7.3% · 43
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 19
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.4% · 14
Popularity
Xaviera: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Xaviera from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 205 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
Xaviera 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 Xaviera during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Xavieras live
Origin
Meaning and history of Xaviera
The name Xaviera is a feminine form of the masculine name Xavier, which has its origins in the Basque language spoken in the Pyrenees region of Spain and France. It is derived from the ancient Basque word "etxe-berri," meaning "new house" or "new homestead." The name Xavier was popularized by the Catholic Saint Francis Xavier, a Navarrese missionary and co-founder of the Jesuit order, who lived from 1506 to 1552.
The earliest recorded use of the name Xaviera dates back to the 16th century, likely influenced by the fame and veneration of St. Francis Xavier. One of the earliest known individuals with this name was Xaviera de Jesús, a Spanish nun and mystic who lived from 1592 to 1638.
In the 17th century, Xaviera de Guzmán (1619-1668) was a Spanish noblewoman and writer known for her literary works, including the novel "La Vida y Hechos de Estebanillo González." Another notable bearer of this name was Xaviera de Braganza (1637-1692), an Infanta of Portugal who married King Alfonso VI of Portugal.
During the 18th century, Xaviera María de Lara y Mendoza (1728-1806) was a Spanish aristocrat and the Countess of Lemos. She was known for her patronage of the arts and her influential role in the cultural life of Madrid.
In more recent times, one of the most famous individuals named Xaviera was Xaviera Hollander (born 1943), a Dutch writer and former call girl. She gained international attention with the publication of her autobiography, "The Happy Hooker: My Own Story," in 1971, which became a bestseller and was later adapted into a film.
Another notable Xaviera was Xaviera Batista (1919-2020), a Mexican-American aerospace engineer and pilot who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA. She was one of the first Mexican-American women to work in the field of aeronautical engineering and made significant contributions to aircraft design.
People
Xaviera + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Xaviera as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with X
Other first names starting with X with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Xaviera: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Xaviera?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 669 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Xaviera 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 512,338 US residents.
Is Xaviera a common name?
We classify Xaviera as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 697 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Xaviera most popular?
The single biggest year for Xaviera was 1992, when 29 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Xaviera is about 31 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Xaviera in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 588 people with the name Xaviera, or 0.19 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #18,347 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 Xaviera 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 Xaviera?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Xaviera leans strongly female. 582 people counted with this name were female (97.8%), compared with 13 male bearers (2.2%). 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 Xaviera?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Xaviera is Black at 48.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (27.6%) and White (11.1%). 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 Xaviera most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Xaviera in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.5% (285 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 Xaviera in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Xaviera a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Xaviera 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 Xaviera still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Xaviera 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 Xaviera 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 Xaviera?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.