Yunus
A masculine Arabic name meaning "the whale" or "the prophet Jonah".
Name Census estimates that about 1,208 living Americans carry the first name Yunus. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Yunus today is around 10 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yunus births was 2023 (127 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yunus. 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 Yunus with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Yunus is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 10 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.2K
~ 1 in 283,737 Americans
Peak year
2023
127 babies that year
Average age
10
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,464
Tracked since 1988
Census
Yunus in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,119 people with the first name Yunus, which placed it at #11,445 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
#11,445
National first-name rank
People counted
1.1K
1,119 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
47.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yunus
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yunus is White at 47.8%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (27.4%) and Black (16.0%). 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 Yunus 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 Yunus at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White47.8% · 535
- Asian and Pacific Islander27.4% · 307
- Black or African American16.0% · 179
- Two or more races6.5% · 73
- Hispanic or Latino2.2% · 25
Popularity
Yunus: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yunus from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 524 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yunus 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 Yunus during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Yunus' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 16 states and territories. New York, Texas, California recorded the most babies named Yunus, while Tennessee, Minnesota, Florida recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 38 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Yunus
The name Yunus is derived from the Arabic word younus, which means "whale" or "fish". It has its origins in the Middle East and is an ancient name with roots in the Qur'an and Islamic religious tradition.
The name Yunus is a reference to the prophet Jonah, who was famously swallowed by a whale or large fish according to the biblical and Quranic narratives. In the Qur'an, the story of Yunus (Jonah) is mentioned in two chapters, Al-Anbya and As-Saffat.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Yunus was Yunus ibn Matta (776-861 CE), an Arab Christian scholar and translator from Mesopotamia. He played a significant role in translating Greek philosophical and scientific works into Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.
In the 12th century, Yunus Emre (1240-1320) was a famous Turkish poet and Sufi mystic who wrote in the Turkish language. His poems, which often carried spiritual themes, contributed greatly to the spread of Islam in Anatolia.
Another notable figure was Yunus Khan (1416-1487), a ruler of the Timurid Empire in Central Asia. He was known for his patronage of arts and architecture, and his reign saw the construction of several prominent buildings in Samarkand and Herat.
In the 16th century, Yunus Pasha (1516-1570) was an Ottoman military commander and Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He played a vital role in the Ottoman conquests in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
More recently, Yunus Emre Özsümer (1942-2022) was a Turkish politician and diplomat who served as the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation from 2004 to 2010.
People
Yunus + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yunus as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yunus: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yunus?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,208 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yunus 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 283,737 US residents.
Is Yunus a common name?
We classify Yunus as "Rare". It ranks above 91.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,218 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yunus most popular?
The single biggest year for Yunus was 2023, when 127 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yunus is about 10 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yunus in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,119 people with the name Yunus, or 0.37 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,445 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 Yunus 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 Yunus?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yunus appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,117 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Yunus?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yunus is White at 47.8%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (27.4%) and Black (16.0%). 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 Yunus most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Yunus in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.8% (535 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 Yunus in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yunus a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Yunus in the SSA data are male. 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 Yunus still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yunus 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 Yunus 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 called Yunus?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.