Jiraiya
Masculine
Jiraiya is given to both — 2,278 boys and 131 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Jiraiya belongs to a ninja hero of nineteenth-century Japanese popular fiction — a young swordsman who rides and commands giant toads, a figure so beloved he moved from cheap serial books to kabuki stages and woodblock prints. The sound is all open vowels, four of them in the Japanese reading, ending on the same soft -a that carries so many names easily in English. It arrived in American records through a manga, and it arrived intact.
How old is the name Jiraiya?
Jiraiya first appears in US birth records in 2007 — 18 years ago. The typical Jiraiya is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 2,300 people named Jiraiya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jiraiya most popular?
Jiraiya peaked in 2023, reaching #735 nationally. Today it ranks #988, 253 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Jiraiya
The name comes from Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari, 'The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya', a Japanese adventure serial that began appearing in 1839 and ran for decades under several authors. Its hero is a young ninja with toad magic, and the story proved durable enough to be adapted for kabuki, illustrated by leading print artists, and later filmed. In 1999 Masashi Kishimoto gave the name to the toad-summoning sage of his manga Naruto, and that is the road by which Jiraiya reached American birth records, spelled exactly as it is romanized from Japanese.
Meaningscholars disagree
A hero's name from Japanese storytelling, written with characters for thunder in one tradition and 'coming of one's own accord' in another
Jiraiya is a character name rather than an ordinary Japanese word, and it has been written two ways. As 児雷也 it uses the characters for 'child' and 'thunder'. As 自来也 — the spelling used in the Naruto manga — the characters read roughly as 'he who comes of himself'. Neither is a plain vocabulary meaning; both are readings attached to the hero.
Pronouncing Jiraiya
jee-RYE-uh
That is the usual American reading. The Japanese pronunciation keeps all four vowels even and unhurried: jee-rah-ee-yah. Both are in circulation among English speakers, so it is worth deciding which one you will correct people toward.
Nicknames for Jiraiya
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
- 2007
- Most boys named
- 2023357 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #735reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −9.1%231 in 2025, from 254
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.
Jiraiya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- 自来也 in Japanese — transliteration
- 児雷也 in Japanese — spelling variant
- Jiraya in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Jiraiyas among us
people named Jiraiya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,394 born in 2025 was named Jiraiya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Trae test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jiraiya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Trae climbed just as high around 1993, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Trae's path sketches the road Jiraiya is walking now.
Jiraiya 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
Where Jiraiya is headed
Jiraiya looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 24% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Jiraiya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jiraiya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Romanized one settled way from Japanese, so the spelling you choose is the spelling the source material uses.
- Recognized instantly by a very large audience familiar with the Naruto manga and anime.
- Almost certainly the only one in a classroom, without being a coined or unplaceable name.
- Built from open vowels and a soft -a ending, which sits comfortably beside common English surnames.
- The name is bound tightly to one fictional character. Anyone who knows the source will say so out loud, often, and for years — that is a conversation your child will have rather than one you can settle in advance.
- Expect spelling repair. Jiraiya, Jiraya and Jaraiya all circulate, and the vowel cluster in the middle invites guessing over the phone.
- In Japan this reads as a folkloric and fictional hero's name rather than a contemporary given name, which is worth knowing if the family has Japanese-speaking relatives.
- Its American life is very short so far, so it carries the stamp of a particular cultural moment more than a long naming tradition.
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What they receive
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Jiraiya
Masculine · #988 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jiraiyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Jiraiya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jiraiya in 2025?
- Jiraiya ranks #988 among US boy names in 2025, with 231 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jiraiya?
- About 1 in every 7,394 US boys born in 2025 was named Jiraiya — 231 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jiraiya with classmates?
- Jiraiya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jiraiya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ephraim#988 · Isael#988 · Aurelius#991 · Palmer#991 · Joe#991 · Blaine#991 · Harold#991 · Curtis#984
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jiraiya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jiraiya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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