Zaccheus
A Hebrew masculine name meaning "pure" or "innocent".
Name Census estimates that about 472 living Americans carry the first name Zaccheus. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Zaccheus today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Zaccheus births was 2001 (23 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Zaccheus. 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
472
~ 1 in 726,174 Americans
Peak year
2001
23 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2019 SSA rank
#14,067
Tracked since 1980
Census
Zaccheus in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 389 people with the first name Zaccheus, which placed it at #24,672 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
#24,672
National first-name rank
People counted
389
389 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
67.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Zaccheus
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zaccheus is Black at 67.4%. The next largest groups are White (14.1%) and Two or More Races (8.5%). 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 Zaccheus 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 Zaccheus at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American67.4% · 262
- White14.1% · 55
- Two or more races8.5% · 33
- Hispanic or Latino5.7% · 22
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.8% · 11
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 6
Popularity
Zaccheus: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Zaccheus from the 1980s through to the 2010s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 174 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Zaccheus remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Zaccheus 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 Zaccheus during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Zaccheus' live
Origin
Meaning and history of Zaccheus
The name Zaccheus has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture. It is derived from the Hebrew name Zakkai, which means "pure" or "innocent." The name is first mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible, where a man named Zaccheus, a chief tax collector in Jericho, climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus. This account is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19, verses 1-10.
In this biblical story, Zaccheus is described as a wealthy man who was eager to see Jesus but could not because of the crowd. When Jesus noticed him in the tree, he called him by name and announced that he would stay at Zaccheus's house that day. This encounter led to Zaccheus's repentance and promise to give half of his possessions to the poor and repay anyone he had defrauded four times over.
The name Zaccheus gained popularity among early Christians, particularly in the Middle East and Europe, as a result of this biblical account. It was also sometimes spelled as Zacchaeus or Zachaeus in various languages.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name was in the 3rd century AD, when a Christian martyr named Zaccheus was put to death during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Another notable figure with this name was Zaccheus of Jerusalem, a 4th-century bishop and author of a work on the Holy Land.
In the Middle Ages, the name Zaccheus was relatively common among Jews and Christians alike. A notable bearer of the name was Zaccheus, the 13th-century Archbishop of York in England (born around 1235, died in 1315).
Other famous individuals named Zaccheus include:
1. Zaccheus Gallienus, a 16th-century Italian mathematician and astronomer (born around 1556, died in 1636).
2. Zaccheus Whitehead, an English Protestant minister and author in the late 16th and early 17th centuries (born around 1586, died in 1626).
3. Zaccheus Stille, a Swedish Lutheran theologian and bishop in the 17th century (born in 1658, died in 1736).
4. Zaccheus Barneveldt, a Dutch painter active in the 17th century (born around 1640, died in 1712).
5. Zaccheus Maunder, an English minister and author in the 18th century (born in 1714, died in 1785).
People
Zaccheus + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Zaccheus as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Z
Other first names starting with Z with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Zaccheus: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Zaccheus?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 472 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Zaccheus 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 726,174 US residents.
Is Zaccheus a common name?
We classify Zaccheus as "Very Rare". It ranks above 84% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 481 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Zaccheus most popular?
The single biggest year for Zaccheus was 2001, when 23 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Zaccheus is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Zaccheus in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 389 people with the name Zaccheus, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,672 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 Zaccheus 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 Zaccheus?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Zaccheus leans strongly male. 389 people counted with this name were male (98.5%), compared with 6 female bearers (1.5%). 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 Zaccheus?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zaccheus is Black at 67.4%. The next largest groups are White (14.1%) and Two or More Races (8.5%). 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 Zaccheus most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Zaccheus in the 2020 Census, accounting for 67.4% (262 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 Zaccheus in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Zaccheus a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Zaccheus 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 Zaccheus still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Zaccheus 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 Zaccheus 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 common is the name Zaccheus?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.