Zechariah
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord remembers".
Name Census estimates that about 10,894 living Americans carry the first name Zechariah. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Zechariah today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Zechariah births was 2015 (394 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Zechariah. 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 Zechariah with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
11K
~ 1 in 31,463 Americans
Peak year
2015
394 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#900
Tracked since 1971
Census
Zechariah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 7,229 people with the first name Zechariah, which placed it at #3,062 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
#3,062
National first-name rank
People counted
7.2K
7,229 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
45.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Zechariah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zechariah is White at 45.7%. The next largest groups are Black (28.2%) and Hispanic (13.5%). 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 Zechariah 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 Zechariah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White45.7% · 3,305
- Black or African American28.2% · 2,042
- Hispanic or Latino13.5% · 973
- Two or more races8.2% · 592
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.4% · 244
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 73
Gender
Gender distribution for Zechariah
Out of the 11,072 babies given the name Zechariah since 1880, 99.9% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Zechariah as a male name
- Ranked #900 in 2024
- 261 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (394 births)
Zechariah as a female name
- Ranked #13,686 in 2009
- 8 female births in 2009
- Peak: 2009 (8 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Zechariah appears almost entirely male. Of the 7,229 people counted with this name, 99.2% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Zechariah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Zechariah 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 3,432 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Zechariah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Zechariah 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 Zechariah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Zechariahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Zechariah, while West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 235 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Zechariah
The name Zechariah is a Hebrew name derived from the words "zakar," meaning "to remember," and "Yah," one of the shortened forms of the Hebrew name for God. It first appeared in the Old Testament of the Bible, where it was the name of several minor figures, including a prophet who lived in the 6th century BCE and authored the Book of Zechariah.
The name Zechariah gained prominence in the New Testament as the name of the father of John the Baptist. According to the Gospel of Luke, Zechariah was a priest who was struck mute by an angel for doubting that his wife Elizabeth would bear a child in their old age. His speech was restored upon the birth of his son, whom he named John.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Zechariah is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish texts dating back to the 3rd century BCE. The name appears in several of the scrolls, including the Damascus Document and the Community Rule, suggesting it was in use among the Essene community at that time.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Zechariah. In the 4th century CE, Zechariah of Mytilene was a Greek ecclesiastical historian and bishop of Mytilene. In the 6th century, Zechariah Scholasticus was a prominent Byzantine canonist and bishop of Mytilene.
During the Middle Ages, Zechariah ben Isaac of Barcelona (1275-1349) was a Spanish Jewish astronomer and mathematician who made important contributions to the study of planetary motion. In the 16th century, Zechariah Ursinus (1534-1583) was a German Protestant theologian and one of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism.
More recently, Zechariah Chafee Jr. (1885-1957) was an American legal scholar and influential advocate for freedom of speech, while Zechariah Sitchin (1920-2010) was a controversial Russian-American author who promoted theories about ancient astronauts and their influence on early human civilization.
People
Zechariah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Zechariah 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
Zechariah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Zechariah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,894 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Zechariah 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 31,463 US residents.
Is Zechariah a common name?
We classify Zechariah as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 11,072 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Zechariah most popular?
The single biggest year for Zechariah was 2015, when 394 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Zechariah is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Zechariah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 7,229 people with the name Zechariah, or 2.39 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,062 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 Zechariah 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 Zechariah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Zechariah appears almost entirely male. Of the 7,229 people counted with this name, 99.2% 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 Zechariah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zechariah is White at 45.7%. The next largest groups are Black (28.2%) and Hispanic (13.5%). 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 Zechariah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Zechariah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 45.7% (3,305 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 Zechariah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Zechariah a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Zechariah 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 Zechariah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Zechariah 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 Zechariah 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 Zechariah?
You can see how many people share the name Zechariah on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.