Isaiah
Feminine · “the Lord is salvation”
Isaiah is given to boys far more often — 254,020 boys against 690 girls since 1880. See Isaiah as a boy name
The oldest complete copy of any book of the Hebrew Bible is a scroll of Isaiah, found in a cave above the Dead Sea in 1947 and written about a century before the common era. It is a thousand years older than anything scholars had before it, and what it showed was how little the text had drifted in all that time. The name belongs to a book that has been read continuously for twenty-seven centuries.
How old is the name Isaiah?
Isaiah first appears in US birth records in 1976 — 49 years ago. The typical Isaiah alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 700 people named Isaiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Isaiah most popular?
Isaiah peaked in 2004, reaching #2781 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 10,427 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yesha'yahu to Isaiah
The story of Isaiah
The book is long, and scholars have argued since the eighteenth century that it is the work of more than one hand: the first thirty-nine chapters belong to Jerusalem in the eighth century before the common era, and the material from chapter forty onward addresses people already in exile in Babylon, two hundred years later. That is not a modern skepticism so much as an observation about who the text speaks to. The name reached English through the Bible, was taken up by Protestants, and became one of the standard American boys' names of the last forty years, charting in Canada as well.
Meaning
the Lord is salvation
From the Hebrew Yesha'yahu, joining a verb meaning to save or deliver to a short form of the divine name. The -iah ending appears across a whole family of prophetic names — Jeremiah, Zechariah, Obadiah, Nehemiah — and it is the same divine element every time, which is why they rhyme.
How the name formed
- Yesha'yahu
- Esaias
- Isaiah
Related forms: Yeshayahu · Isaías · Isaia · Esaias · Isaiya
Pronouncing Isaiah
eye-ZAY-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Spanish says Isaías with four and the weight at the end. The h at the end of the English spelling is silent and represents the Hebrew consonant that closes the divine name.
Nicknames for Isaiah
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1976
- Most girls named
- 200458 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2781reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- −53.8%6 in 2025, from 13
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Isaiah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yeshayahu in Hebrew — transliteration
- Isaías in Spanish — same name
- Isaia in Italian — same name
- Esaias in Greek — transliteration
- Isaiya in Russian — same name
Isaiahs among us
people named Isaiah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Isaiah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Isaiah
- #13208
- Isaiah on the 2025 chart
- #947
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Isaiah went to 6 girls in 2025, but Izayah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 13, which makes it the 947th most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,261 places above the chart.
- Izayah7
- Isaiah6
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Isaiah itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Alicea test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Isaiah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alicea climbed just as high around 1984, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alicea's path sketches the road Isaiah is walking now.
Isaiah sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Isaiah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Isaiah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has been in continuous use for something close to three thousand years.
- Zay is a genuinely modern short form and Izzy an old one, so a boy has range.
- It is recognized in Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike.
- The meaning is short, positive and easy to give in four words.
- It has been very heavily used in the last two decades, so a boy will meet others of his age.
- Isaias, Izaiah and Isiah all appear in American records, so the spelling is asked for more often than the standard version suggests.
- Nearly every child given this spelling is a boy; the record's girls are very few.
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What they receive
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Isaiah
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Isaiahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Isaiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Isaiah?
- Isaiah is one of 2 recorded spellings. Izayah is the more common one — 7 births in 2025 against 6 for Isaiah.
- How popular is the name Isaiah in 2025?
- Isaiah ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Isaiah?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Isaiah — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Isaiah with classmates?
- Isaiah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Isaiah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Isaiah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Isaiah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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