Julian

193,591 people in America carry this name — ranked #286 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it JOO lee uhn

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH UW1 L IY0 AH0 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 193,591 2020 Census
  • Rank #286 Common
  • Per 100,000 64.1 about 1 in 1,712 people
  • As a surname 14,572 ranked #2,427 the other way round

Where Julian comes from and what it means

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.

Julian name popularity by year

230,875 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2017, with 8,461 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 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.

What goes well after Julian

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

Better avoided

  • Julian John — same opening
  • Julian James — same opening
  • Julian 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.

On the way up

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

Is Julian used for boys or for girls?

98.3% men
3,234 women

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

How to spell Julian

Julian is how 15% of them spell it — 1,299,739 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.

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 carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 24.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 9.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 58.4%
  • Two or more races — 4.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

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.

The states where Julian is most common

In Nevada the name is given 2.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Nevada ×2.4
  • New Mexico ×2.4
  • Arizona ×2.0
  • California ×1.8
  • Texas ×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.

This name in other languages

  • Julie Ill.|Fr.|Wall
  • Julyan English
  • Julien French
  • Juliao Portuguese
  • Jellon Scottish
  • Julijan Slov
  • Juliano Spanish
  • Juliane German
  • Juliana Eng.|Span.|Port.|Wall
  • Julienne French
  • Julianus
  • Joliette French
  • Giulietta Italian
  • Juliaantje Dutch

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.

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