Yonah
Masculine · “dove”
Yonah is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 911 boys against 26 girls since 1880.
Yonah is a dove, and the man who carried the name in the Hebrew scriptures spent three days inside a fish trying not to do his job. It is one of the shortest and strangest books in the collection.
How old is the name Yonah?
Yonah first appears in US birth records in 1974 — 51 years ago. The typical Yonah alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 900 people named Yonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yonah most popular?
Yonah peaked in 2024, reaching #2915 nationally. Today it ranks #2941, 26 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yonah to Yonah
The story of Yonah
Jonah is sent to warn Nineveh, sails in the opposite direction, is thrown overboard, swallowed, delivered, does the job, and then sulks when the city repents and is spared — a book that is at least partly a comedy at the prophet's expense. It is read in full on the afternoon of Yom Kippur. The Hebrew Yonah stayed in Jewish use, while Greek and Latin gave the English Jonah. Yonah reaches United States records with Israeli and observant Jewish families and is closer to the original than Jonah is.
Meaning
dove
Hebrew yonah is the ordinary word for a dove or a pigeon — the bird Noah sends out, the bird offered by families too poor for a lamb. The reading is exact and undisputed. Whether the prophet's name is meant to comment on him is a question commentators have enjoyed for a very long time, since a dove is not what he behaves like.
How the name formed
- Yonah
- Ionas
- Jonah
Related forms: Jonah · יונה · Yunus · Ionas
Pronouncing Yonah
yo-NAH
Two syllables with the stress on the second in Hebrew. English speakers say YO-nuh, with the stress at the front and the ending reduced — which is the Jonah pattern rather than the Hebrew one.
Nicknames for Yonah
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
- 1974
- Most boys named
- 202443 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2915reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −2.3%42 in 2025, from 43
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.
Yonah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jonah in English — same name
- יונה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Yunus in Arabic — same name
- Ionas in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey.
Yonahs among us
people named Yonah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 40,668 born in 2025 was named Yonah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Yonah
- #2941
- Yonah on the 2025 chart
- #871
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Yonah went to 42 boys in 2025, but Yona is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 57, which makes it the 871st most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,070 places above the chart.
- Yonah42
- Yona15
About 1 boy in 29,966 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 40,668 for Yonah 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 Ikenna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yonah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ikenna climbed just as high around 1991, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ikenna's path sketches the road Yonah is walking now.
Yonah 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 Yonah is headed
Yonah looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 19% 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.
Yonah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yonah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A concrete meaning — an actual bird — with a genuinely memorable story attached.
- Five letters, no silent ones, and easy for English speakers to say at first sight.
- Closer to the Hebrew than Jonah, which is often the reason for choosing it.
- English speakers will write Jonah, which is the same name after Greek got to it.
- The stress falls differently in Hebrew and English, so the child will hear two versions.
- The story attached is a comic one at the prophet's expense, which some families enjoy and others do not.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Yonah
Masculine · #2941 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yonahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Yonah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Yonah?
- Yonah is the most-used spelling in US records — 42 of the 57 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Yona.
- How popular is the name Yonah in 2025?
- Yonah ranks #2941 among US boy names in 2025, with 42 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yonah?
- About 1 in every 40,668 US boys born in 2025 was named Yonah — 42 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yonah with classmates?
- Yonah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yonah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Prescott#2941 · Kwame#2941 · Michelangelo#2941 · Jahan#2941 · Kairi#2941 · Nihal#2941 · Lakai#2941 · Reyes#2941
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yonah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yonah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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