Jonah
Masculine · “Dove”
Jonah is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 85,283 boys against 792 girls since 1880. See Jonah as a girl name
Jonah is the English form of Hebrew Yonah, the name of the prophet who ran from an errand, met a storm, and ended up inside a great fish — one of the shortest and most retold books in the Hebrew Bible. It has two open syllables and no silent trickery in the spelling, and it has been read aloud in synagogues, churches and mosques for a very long time, under one form of the name or another.
How old is the name Jonah?
Jonah was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Jonah alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 83,000 people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jonah most popular?
Jonah peaked in 2023, reaching #124 nationally. Today it ranks #128, 4 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yonah to Jonah
The story of Jonah
The name belongs first to the Book of Jonah, a Hebrew text of the prophet swallowed by a great fish and delivered to Nineveh. The Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible rendered Yonah as Ionas, Latin took it as Jonas, and that s-form is still the standard one across much of Europe. English kept a closer transcription of the Hebrew, Jonah with its final h, and the Reformation and the Puritan taste for Old Testament names carried it into ordinary English-speaking households. The same prophet is Yunus in the Quran, which gives an entire sura its name, so the story travels far beyond the languages that spell it Jonah.
Meaning
Dove
Hebrew yonah, the bird. The same word appears in the Genesis flood story, of the dove sent out from the ark.
Cultural footprint
Jonah Hill (b. 1983) — Superbad comic turned two-time Oscar nominee
Jonah Lomu (b. 1975) — Rugby's first global superstar
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Yonah
- Ionas
- Jonas
- Jonah
Related forms: Yonah · Yunus · Jonas · Jonás · Ionas · Jonas
Pronouncing Jonah
JOH-nuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The final h is silent — it marks the Hebrew spelling rather than a sound. Distinct from Jonas, which keeps the s aloud.
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 20082,981 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #124reached in 2023
- Change vs 2022
- +2.7%2,828 in 2025, from 2,754
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 — transliteration
- Yunus in Arabic — related form
- Jonas in German, Swedish, Lithuanian — same name
- Jonás in Spanish — same name
- Ionas in Greek — same name
- Jonas in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Jonahs among us
people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 604 born in 2025 was named Jonah
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 Abraham 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: Abraham climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Abraham'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.
High 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 boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds, and already familiar to anyone who has met the biblical story — very little correcting to do.
- Recognizable across languages: Jonas in German and French, Jonás in Spanish, Yunus in Arabic, Yonah in Hebrew.
- An unbroken written record going back to the Hebrew Bible, and continuous English use since the Reformation.
- Common enough to be known everywhere, uncommon enough that most classrooms hold only one.
- Sailors have used "a Jonah" for centuries to mean someone who brings bad luck aboard, straight from the storm in the story. It surfaces rarely in ordinary life, but it is out there, and worth knowing before someone else mentions it.
- Jonas is the standard form in much of Europe and in plenty of American families, so expect a certain number of forms and emails to come back with an s on the end.
- The fish gets brought up. Most children hear the story at some point, and jokes about being swallowed are the predictable ones — usually short-lived, and easier if the child already knows the tale.
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What they receive
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Jonah
Masculine · #128 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 83,000 people named Jonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jonah in 2025?
- Jonah ranks #128 among US boy names in 2025, with 2,828 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jonah?
- About 1 in every 604 US boys born in 2025 was named Jonah — 2,828 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.
Jasper#129 · Landon#127 · Hunter#130 · George#126 · Dean#125 · Jordan#131 · Calvin#132 · Carson#124
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jonah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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