Yazan
Masculine
Yazan reaches back to the Dhu Yazan, a noble clan of Himyar in ancient South Arabia, and to Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, the Yemeni king whose deeds became one of the great Arabic folk epics, retold by storytellers for centuries. Two syllables, five letters, no silent anything. In the United States it has been quietly on the books for decades and is now climbing, most visible in places with long-established Arab-American communities.
How old is the name Yazan?
Yazan first appears in US birth records in 1983 — 42 years ago. The typical Yazan is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 2,000 people named Yazan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yazan most popular?
Yazan peaked in 2025, reaching #1123 nationally. Today it ranks #1123, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yazan (Himyarite clan name, Old South Arabian) to Yazan
The story of Yazan
The name belongs first to southern Arabia, where Dhu Yazan was a princely line of the Himyarite kingdom. Its most famous bearer is Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, the sixth-century Yemeni ruler who drove the Aksumite occupiers out of Yemen and whose life grew into the Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, a folk romance recited across the Arab world long after the historical events had blurred. From that epic the name stayed alive as a heroic reference rather than an everyday choice. Its use as a given name for boys is a modern revival, strongest in the Levant — Jordan, Palestine, Syria — and it traveled with families from those regions into Europe and North America.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Nobody has settled what Yazan means. What is documented is where it comes from: Yazan was the name of a clan of the Himyarite kingdom in pre-Islamic Yemen, recorded in the title Dhu Yazan ('of Yazan'). Old South Arabian was a separate language from Arabic, and the sense of the clan name was not carried over with it. Arabic sources commonly tie the name to a place in Yemen; that connection is traditional rather than proven.
How the name formed
- YazanHimyarite clan name, Old South Arabian
- Dhu YazanSouth Arabian princely title
- يزنArabic Yazan
- Yazan
Related forms: يزن · Yazen · Yazeen · Yezan
Pronouncing Yazan
yah-ZAHN
Both a's are open, as in 'father'. Arabic-speaking families often place the stress on the first syllable instead — YA-zan — and both are heard in the same rooms without anyone correcting anyone.
Nicknames for Yazan
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
- 1983
- Most boys named
- 2025190 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1123reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +8.6%190 in 2025, from 175
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.
Yazan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- يزن in Arabic — transliteration
- Yazen in Arabic (Levantine transliteration) — spelling variant
- Yazeen in English/French transliteration — spelling variant
- Yezan in Turkish rendering — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Michigan.
Yazans among us
people named Yazan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,990 born in 2025 was named Yazan
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 Jo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yazan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jo climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jo's path sketches the road Yazan is walking now.
Yazan is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Yazan is headed
Yazan looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 36% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Yazan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yazan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled as it sounds in English: five letters, two syllables, no silent or doubled letters to explain.
- Works unchanged in both Arabic and English script conventions, so it does not need a second version for documents abroad.
- A documented lineage running back to the Himyarite kingdom of ancient Yemen, and to a hero of Arabic folk epic.
- Short enough to survive nicknames intact, with Yaz already in real use.
- Most Americans will not have met it, so expect it to be repeated and confirmed often, and to be written down as Yazen or Yazzan by people spelling by ear.
- The stress moves depending on who is speaking — YA-zan in Arabic, yah-ZAHN in English. That is normal for the name, but a child may spend years choosing which one to answer to.
- Being the only one in a school cuts both ways: nothing to share the name with, and nothing to distinguish it from either.
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What they receive
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Yazan
Masculine · #1123 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yazans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Yazan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yazan in 2025?
- Yazan ranks #1123 among US boy names in 2025, with 190 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yazan?
- About 1 in every 8,990 US boys born in 2025 was named Yazan — 190 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yazan with classmates?
- Yazan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yazan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Duncan#1123 · Landyn#1123 · Kartier#1123 · Axl#1123 · Makoa#1118 · Rylo#1118 · Lucius#1128 · Santi#1118
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yazan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yazan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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