Noah

372,421 people in America carry this name — ranked #129 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it NOH uh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

N OW1 AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 372,421 2020 Census
  • Rank #129 Common
  • Per 100,000 123.3 about 1 in 890 people
  • As a surname 5,059 ranked #6,459 the other way round

What Noah means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “rest”.

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 Noah has been given

433,983 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2015, with 19,787 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.

Middle names for Noah

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

Better avoided

  • Noah Nicholas — same opening
  • Noah Nathan — same opening
  • Noah Henry — 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

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

Is Noah used for boys or for girls?

99.4% men
2,393 women

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

Where the name Noah is most common in the US

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

  • Hawaii ×1.7
  • Nevada ×1.6
  • Florida ×1.3
  • Vermont ×1.3
  • Alaska ×1.3

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 about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

This name in other languages

  • Noe Fr.|Russ
  • Noa Italian
  • Noachas Greek

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.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 62.3%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 7.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 19.5%
  • Two or more races — 6.7%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.1%
  • 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 most common 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 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 Hebrew origin