Jonah
Feminine · “dove”
Jonah is given to boys far more often — 85,283 boys against 792 girls since 1880. See Jonah as a boy name
Jonah is the Hebrew word for a dove, and it belongs to the prophet who ran away from an errand and spent three days inside a fish thinking about it.
How old is the name Jonah?
Jonah first appears in US birth records in 1964 — 61 years ago. The typical Jonah alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 800 people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jonah most popular?
Jonah peaked in 2025, reaching #3780 nationally. Today it ranks #3780, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From yonah to Jonah
The story of Jonah
The book of Jonah is four chapters long and is the only prophetic book that is a story rather than a collection of oracles — a man told to preach to a city he hates, who runs, is swallowed, obeys, succeeds, and then sulks about it under a plant. English Protestants took the name up after the Reformation. Its use for girls in American records is recent and small, alongside Micah, Judah and Ezra.
Meaning
dove
From Hebrew yonah, a dove; the bird is used throughout the Hebrew Bible for gentleness and as the one that returns to Noah with an olive leaf, and the prophet's name sits interestingly against his behavior.
How the name formed
- yonah
- Jonah
Related forms: Yonah · Yunus · Jonás
Pronouncing Jonah
JOH-nah
Two syllables, first stressed. Hebrew gives yo-NAH, with a y at the front and the stress at the end.
Nicknames for Jonah
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
- 1964
- Most girls named
- 202539 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3780reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +56.0%39 in 2025, 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.
Jonah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yonah in Hebrew — same name
- Yunus in Arabic — same name
- Jonás in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Georgia.
Jonahs among us
people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 41,212 born in 2025 was named Jonah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jonah
- #3780
- Jonah on the 2025 chart
- #904
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jonah went to 39 girls in 2025, but Jonna and Jona are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 56, which makes it the 904th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,876 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 28,701 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 41,212 for Jonah 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 Shaya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jonah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shaya climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shaya's path sketches the road Jonah is walking now.
Jonah 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 Jonah is headed
Jonah should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. 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.
Jonah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jonah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning tied to a real bird with a long symbolic history.
- The story behind it is short, strange and genuinely worth telling.
- Jo and Joni are both usable short forms.
- It is read as a boy's name by default, and she will correct that often.
- A Jonah at sea is proverbially someone who brings bad luck, which sailors will know.
- The English and Hebrew pronunciations differ entirely.
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Jonah
Feminine · #3780 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jonahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jonah?
- Jonah is the most-used spelling in US records — 39 of the 56 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Jonna and Jona.
- How popular is the name Jonah in 2025?
- Jonah ranks #3780 among US girl names in 2025, with 39 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jonah?
- About 1 in every 41,212 US girls born in 2025 was named Jonah — 39 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jonah with classmates?
- Jonah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jonah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kimberlyn#3780 · Aine#3780 · Jakayla#3780 · Shriya#3780 · Analeigh#3780 · Daliyah#3780 · Dawsyn#3780 · Jamia#3780
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jonah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jonah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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