Yunus
Masculine · “dove”
Yunus is the Arabic and Turkish form of the name English speakers know as Jonah, and it has been carried in the Muslim world for as long as the Quran has been recited — the tenth sura bears it. In Turkish it belongs to one of the language's most quoted poets, Yunus Emre of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, whose hymns are still sung. Two syllables, five letters, and a long O sound in the middle.
How old is the name Yunus?
Yunus first appears in US birth records in 1988 — 37 years ago. The typical Yunus is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,400 people named Yunus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yunus most popular?
Yunus peaked in 2025, reaching #1290 nationally. Today it ranks #1290, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yonah to Yunus
The story of Yunus
The name begins as Hebrew Yonah, the prophet swallowed by the great fish, and passed into Greek as Ionas when the Hebrew scriptures were translated at Alexandria. Arabic received it as Yunus, and the Quran names its tenth sura after him, which fixed the form across the whole Islamic world — Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Bosnian, Indonesian, Malay, Hausa, Urdu. In Anatolia it attached itself to the poet Yunus Emre, and Turkish families have used it steadily since. It reaches the United States not through the English line that produced Jonah, but through immigration from Turkey, the Arab world, South Asia and Southeast Asia — the same name, arriving by a different road.
Meaning
dove
Yunus comes from Hebrew Yonah, meaning dove, by way of Greek and Arabic. A separate and genuine curiosity: in modern Turkish the ordinary word yunus means dolphin, which sits alongside the name rather than explaining it.
How the name formed
- Yonah
- Ionas
- Yunus
Related forms: يونس (Yunus) · Younes · Younis · Yonah · Jonah · Ionas
Pronouncing Yunus
YOO-nooss
Arabic speakers commonly stress the second syllable, yoo-NOOSS; Turkish keeps the weight closer to the first. Both are correct for their own tradition, so it is worth deciding early which one your family will use.
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
- 1988
- Most boys named
- 2025151 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1290reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +21.8%151 in 2025, from 124
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.
Yunus in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- يونس (Yunus) in Arabic — same name
- Younes in Arabic (Maghrebi) — spelling variant
- Younis in Urdu / Punjabi — spelling variant
- Yonah in Hebrew — related form
- Jonah in English — same name
- Ionas in Greek — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Texas.
Yunuss among us
people named Yunus are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 11,312 born in 2025 was named Yunus
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 Tarek test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yunus's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tarek climbed just as high around 1985, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tarek's path sketches the road Yunus is walking now.
Yunus 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 Yunus is headed
Yunus looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 21% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Yunus beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yunus in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged across Arabic, Turkish, Indonesian, Malay, Bosnian and Urdu-speaking communities — one spelling that travels a very long way.
- Named in the Quran as the title of its tenth sura, which gives it recognition wherever Muslim families gather.
- The same ancient name as Jonah, so it carries a documented line running back to Hebrew scripture.
- Short, five letters, and spelled the way it sounds once the O is understood as a long oo.
- The stress genuinely varies between Turkish and Arabic usage, so expect to correct people in both directions — and to hear the second vowel flattened to YOO-nus by English speakers.
- Younes, Younis and Yunis are all in circulation for the same name, which means forms and rosters may need fixing more than once.
- In an American classroom this child will very likely be the only one, so the name will be explained often — usually with interest rather than confusion, since Jonah gives people an easy handhold.
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What they receive
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Yunus
Masculine · #1290 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yunuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Yunus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yunus in 2025?
- Yunus ranks #1290 among US boy names in 2025, with 151 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yunus?
- About 1 in every 11,312 US boys born in 2025 was named Yunus — 151 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yunus with classmates?
- Yunus will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yunus
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Anas#1290 · Amarion#1290 · Maison#1290 · Achilles#1290 · Asiah#1290 · Titan#1290 · Rudra#1287 · Conway#1287
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yunus? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yunus and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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