Jerico
Masculine · “The moon”
Jerico is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 889 boys against 8 girls since 1880.
Jerico is a town, and the town is one of the oldest places on earth where people have lived continuously — it had a stone tower and a wall before anybody anywhere had invented pottery.
How old is the name Jerico?
Jerico first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Jerico alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 900 people named Jerico are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jerico most popular?
Jerico peaked in 1992, reaching #1955 nationally. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yeriho to Jerico
The story of Jerico
The archaeology is genuinely startling. At the bottom of the mound, below everything else, there is a stone tower eight meters high with an internal staircase, and a wall around the settlement — built by people who had no pottery, no writing and no metal, thousands of years before the pyramids. Nobody is sure what the tower was for. The famous story about the walls has not fared as well: the most careful excavation of the site found that the fortifications of the period in question had been destroyed centuries before the events described, and that the town may have been unoccupied at the time. The dispute has run for decades and shows no sign of resolving.
Meaningscholars disagree
The moon, or fragrance — the two usual readings
The name is usually connected either to a word for the moon, suggesting an early lunar cult, or to a word about fragrance. Neither is settled, and the town is old enough that its name may predate the languages being used to explain it.
How the name formed
- Yeriho
- Jericho
- Jerico
Related forms: Jericó · Ariha
Pronouncing Jerico
JER-ih-koh
Three syllables, stress at the front. The single c here does the same work as the ch of the standard spelling.
Nicknames for Jerico
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 199241 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1955reached in 1992
- Change vs 2023
- −52.0%12 in 2024, from 25
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.
Jerico in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jericó in Spanish — same name
- Ariha in Arabic — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Jericos among us
people named Jerico are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Jerico sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is a real place with an extraordinary history rather than an invented sound.
- It shortens two ways and both short forms are established names.
- It is read correctly on sight.
- Jericho is the standard spelling and his will be written that way.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- The name carries a biblical story that the archaeology does not support.
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What they receive
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Jerico
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Jericos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Jerico are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jerico in 2025?
- Jerico is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Jerico with classmates?
- Jerico will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
James#6 · John#23 · Joseph#29 · Joshua#66 · Jason#165 · Jacob#43 · Jeffrey#552 · Jonathan#89
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jerico? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jerico and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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