James

2,996,421 people in America carry this name — ranked #3 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it JAYMZ

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH EY1 M Z — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 2,996,421 2020 Census
  • Rank #3 Very common
  • Per 100,000 992.1 about 1 in 111 people
  • As a surname 243,502 ranked #86 the other way round

What James means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “supplanter”.

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.

How often James has been given

5,213,689 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 95,021 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50s 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s.

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 that fit James

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • James Joseph — same opening
  • James Jose — same opening
  • James Steven — 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.

What James is called for short

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

Never out of use

James has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

Is James used for boys or for girls?

99.9% men
3,921 women

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

The same name abroad

  • Kub Lus.|Pol
  • Jim English
  • Lapo Italian
  • Kuba Polish
  • Jogg Swiss
  • Jock Swiss
  • Jeka Lett
  • Jako Ill
  • Jaka Slov
  • Jaga English
  • Jaak Esth
  • Jaap Dutch
  • Iago Spanish
  • Como Italian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

The states where James is most common

In Mississippi the name is given 1.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Mississippi ×1.7
  • Kentucky ×1.7
  • West Virginia ×1.6
  • South Carolina ×1.6
  • Alabama ×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.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 82.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 9.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 3.4%
  • Two or more races — 2.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.5%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

How James is spelled

James is how 91% of them spell it — 3,308,431 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.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

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
Other names of Hebrew origin