Julia

349,781 people in America carry this name — ranked #142 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it JOOL yuh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH UW1 L Y AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 349,781 2020 Census
  • Rank #142 Common
  • Per 100,000 115.8 about 1 in 948 people
  • As a surname 844 ranked #29,761 the other way round

What Julia means and where it comes from

Latin in origin, reading literally as “downy bearded”.

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 Julia has been given

466,082 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2001, with 8,849 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. 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 Julia

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Julia Jennifer — same opening
  • Julia Ashley — runs together
  • Julia Amanda — 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.

Never out of use

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

Is Julia used for boys or for girls?

0.3% men
348,856 women

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

Where the name Julia is most common in the US

In Connecticut the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Connecticut ×1.9
  • Massachusetts ×1.9
  • Delaware ×1.7
  • the District of Columbia ×1.7
  • Rhode Island ×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.

Names built the same way as Julia

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 — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

Full names people carry

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) — 69.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.1%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 18.5%
  • Two or more races — 3.2%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.7%
  • 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.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height 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 Latin origin