Jonathan

717,208 people in America carry this name — ranked #47 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it JAH nuh thuhn

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH AA1 N AH0 TH AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 717,208 2020 Census
  • Rank #47 Very common

The meaning and origin of Jonathan

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “the Lord’s gift”.

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.

Jonathan name popularity by year

853,557 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1988, with 24,513 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1980s. It has been given less 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 that fit Jonathan

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

Better avoided

  • Jonathan John — same opening
  • Jonathan James — same opening
  • Jonathan Joseph — same opening

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.

Going quiet

Jonathan has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

Boys or girls: who is called Jonathan?

99.9% men
976 women

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

Names with the same rhythm as Jonathan

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.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.7%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 7.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 24.1%
  • Two or more races — 3.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 4.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.5%

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.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

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.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs 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