Zelig
A Yiddish-derived masculine given name meaning "blessed" or "prosperous".
Name Census estimates that about 179 living Americans carry the first name Zelig. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Zelig today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Zelig births was 2019 (12 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Zelig. 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 Zelig with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
179
~ 1 in 1,914,829 Americans
Peak year
2019
12 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,720
Tracked since 1995
Census
Zelig in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 217 people with the first name Zelig, which placed it at #36,520 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
#36,520
National first-name rank
People counted
217
217 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
81.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Zelig
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zelig is White at 81.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.9%) and Black (5.5%). 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 Zelig 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 Zelig at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White81.6% · 177
- Hispanic or Latino6.9% · 15
- Black or African American5.5% · 12
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.1% · 9
- Two or more races1.8% · 4
Popularity
Zelig: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Zelig from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 68 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Zelig remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Zelig 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 Zelig during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Zeligs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Zelig
The name Zelig is thought to originate from the Yiddish language, which is a dialect of German spoken by Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. The name is believed to be derived from the Hebrew word "zelig," which means "blessed" or "fortunate."
In the 11th century, the name Zelig appeared in several Jewish religious texts and historical records, indicating its use among Yiddish-speaking communities in regions like Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Zelig was Zelig ben Judah, a prominent rabbi and scholar who lived in the city of Mainz, Germany, in the late 11th century.
Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the name Zelig remained popular within Jewish communities across Europe. Notable individuals with this name include Zelig Kalmanovich (1510-1572), a philosopher and mathematician from Poland, and Zelig Bamberger (1633-1703), a renowned Talmudic scholar from Germany.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the name Zelig gained more widespread recognition beyond its traditional usage in Jewish communities. One of the most famous individuals with this name was Zelig Gingold (1860-1936), a Russian-born American actor and vaudeville performer who appeared in several early silent films.
Another notable figure was Zelig Kalmanovitch (1885-1944), a Belarusian-born Jewish author and playwright who wrote extensively about Jewish life and culture. He is considered one of the most influential Yiddish writers of the 20th century.
In more recent history, Zelig Harris (1909-1992) was an American linguist and mathematician who made significant contributions to the field of natural language processing and computational linguistics.
While the name Zelig has its roots in the Yiddish language and Jewish culture, it has gradually gained recognition and usage beyond its traditional boundaries, with individuals from various backgrounds and nationalities adopting it as a given name.
People
Zelig + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Zelig 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
Zelig: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Zelig?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 179 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Zelig 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 1,914,829 US residents.
Is Zelig a common name?
We classify Zelig as "Very Rare". It ranks above 72.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 181 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Zelig most popular?
The single biggest year for Zelig was 2019, when 12 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Zelig is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Zelig in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 217 people with the name Zelig, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #36,520 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 Zelig 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 Zelig?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Zelig leans strongly male. 218 people counted with this name were male (96.5%), compared with 8 female bearers (3.5%). 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 Zelig?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zelig is White at 81.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (6.9%) and Black (5.5%). 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 Zelig most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Zelig in the 2020 Census, accounting for 81.6% (177 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 Zelig in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Zelig a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Zelig 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 Zelig still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Zelig 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 Zelig 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 have the name Zelig?
If you just want to know how many Americans are named Zelig, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.