Genesis

62,795 people in America carry this name — ranked #784 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation Alpha.

Say it JEH nuh suhs

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH EH1 N AH0 S AH0 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 62,795 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 20.8 about 1 in 5,278 people
  • As a surname No not above the reporting threshold

Where Genesis comes from and what it means

Reads literally as “beginning”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Genesis name popularity by year

78,319 babies were given this name since 1964. The busiest year was 2016, with 4,448 of them.

60 70 80 90 00 10s 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Genesis

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Genesis Susan — runs together
  • Genesis Sarah — runs together
  • Genesis Sharon — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Genesis is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Is Genesis a boy's or a girl's name?

3.5% men
60,592 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Genesis is most common

In Nevada the name is given 2.5 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Nevada ×2.5
  • Texas ×2.0
  • Arizona ×1.8
  • California ×1.7
  • Florida ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

How Genesis is spelled

Genesis is how 55% of them spell it — 113,931 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Same syllables and stress as Genesis

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The likeliest full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 11.0%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 80.2%
  • Two or more races — 1.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.3%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Try it Compare Two Names

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One of those is not in the census file.

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Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers