Nehemiah
Feminine · “the Lord comforts”
Nehemiah is given to boys far more often — 21,804 boys against 635 girls since 1880. See Nehemiah as a boy name
Nehemiah was a cupbearer to a Persian king who asked for leave to go and rebuild the walls of a ruined city, got it, and did it in fifty-two days with the workers holding weapons in one hand. His name means the Lord comforts. The spelling goes overwhelmingly to boys, and a small number of girls carry it too.
How old is the name Nehemiah?
Nehemiah first appears in US birth records in 1997 — 28 years ago. The typical Nehemiah is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 600 people named Nehemiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nehemiah most popular?
Nehemiah peaked in 2010, reaching #4107 nationally. Today it ranks #5099, 992 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Nechemyah to Nehemiah
The story of Nehemiah
The book of Nehemiah is one of the few first-person accounts in the Hebrew Bible, and it reads like a memoir: a courtier gets permission from Artaxerxes, rides out to look at the ruins by night, organizes the work by family and gate, and deals with sabotage as it comes. The name entered English use after the Reformation and was common in colonial America. It returned strongly in the two-thousands, and its use for girls is recent and small.
Meaning
the Lord comforts
Hebrew Nechemyah, from nacham, to comfort or console, joined to Yah, a short form of the divine name. The reading has never been disputed.
How the name formed
- Nechemyah
- Neemias
- Nehemiah
Related forms: נחמיה · Nehemías · Neemias
Pronouncing Nehemiah
nee-uh-MY-uh
Four syllables, stress on the third. The -iah ending is said the same way as in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Nicknames for Nehemiah
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
- 1997
- Most girls named
- 201036 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4107reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- +66.7%25 in 2025, from 15
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.
Nehemiah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- נחמיה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Nehemías in Spanish — same name
- Neemias in Greek — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Nehemiahs among us
people named Nehemiah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 64,291 born in 2025 was named Nehemiah
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 Valen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Nehemiah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Valen climbed just as high around 1983, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Valen's path sketches the road Nehemiah is walking now.
Nehemiah 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 Nehemiah is headed
Nehemiah is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues. 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.
Nehemiah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Nehemiah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is a complete sentence and a comforting one.
- Miah works as a short form and is a complete name, particularly for girls.
- Its bearer's story is a first-person account of getting a difficult thing done.
- The name goes overwhelmingly to boys, so a girl called Nehemiah will be filed wrongly often.
- Four syllables is long for American forms and gets clipped without being asked.
- Nehemiah, Nehemias and Nechemyah all appear across languages.
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What they receive
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Nehemiah
Feminine · #5099 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Nehemiahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Nehemiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Nehemiah in 2025?
- Nehemiah ranks #5099 among US girl names in 2025, with 25 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Nehemiah?
- About 1 in every 64,291 US girls born in 2025 was named Nehemiah — 25 in all.
- Will my child share the name Nehemiah with classmates?
- Nehemiah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Nehemiah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Janette#5099 · Loraine#5099 · Delfina#5099 · Hali#5099 · Mecca#5099 · Zoi#5099 · Afia#5099 · Emelie#5099
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nehemiah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Nehemiah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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