Zakariya
Masculine · “God has remembered”
Zakariya is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,511 boys against 47 girls since 1880.
Zakariya is the Arabic form of a name that has been in continuous use for well over two and a half thousand years, since a Hebrew prophet carried it and a biblical book was written under it. Four syllables, all of them open and easy, with the stress landing on the long REE in the middle. It is one of the small set of names shared across the Hebrew Bible, the Christian gospels and the Quran.
How old is the name Zakariya?
Zakariya first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Zakariya is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 2,500 people named Zakariya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zakariya most popular?
Zakariya peaked in 2025, reaching #1128 nationally. Today it ranks #1128, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Zakariya appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Zekharyah to Zakariya
The story of Zakariya
The name begins in Hebrew as Zekharyah and belongs to a prophet of the sixth century BC, whose book closes the Hebrew scriptures' collection of minor prophets. Greek translators rendered it Zacharias, which is how it reached the gospels and, from there, the Christian naming stock of Europe. Arabic took it as Zakariyyā, the name of one of the prophets recognized in the Quran, and Muslim communities carried that form across West Africa, the Horn of Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Zakariya is the spelling that most often results when the Arabic form is written in English letters.
Meaning
God has remembered
From Hebrew Zekharyah, joining the verb "to remember" with a form of the divine name.
How the name formed
- Zekharyah
- Zacharias
- Zakariyyā
- Zakariya
Related forms: Zakariyyā · Zechariah · Zacharias · Zekeriya · Zachary · Zakhar
Pronouncing Zakariya
zak-uh-REE-yuh
Stress on the third syllable. Closer to the Arabic, the first vowel is lighter: za-ka-REE-ya. Both are widely heard in the US.
Nicknames for Zakariya
High
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
- 1989
- Most boys named
- 2025189 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1128reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +11.2%189 in 2025, from 170
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.
Zakariya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Zakariyyā in Arabic — transliteration
- Zechariah in Hebrew — same name
- Zacharias in Greek — same name
- Zekeriya in Turkish — same name
- Zachary in English — related form
- Zakhar in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Minnesota.
Zakariyas among us
people named Zakariya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 9,037 born in 2025 was named Zakariya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Zakariya
- #1128
- Zakariya on the 2025 chart
- #561
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Zakariya went to 189 boys in 2025, but Zakaria, Zakariah and Zackariah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 9 spellings went to 406, which makes it the 561st most-given boys’ name of the year — 567 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 4,207 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 9,037 for Zakariya 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 Kalob test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zakariya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kalob climbed just as high around 2000, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kalob's path sketches the road Zakariya is walking now.
Zakariya 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 Zakariya is headed
Zakariya looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 15% 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.
Zakariya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zakariya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- An unbroken written record stretching back to the Hebrew prophets, and a place in three scriptural traditions.
- Shortens instantly to Zak or Zack, a form Americans already know how to spell and say.
- Recognizable in Arabic, Turkish, Somali, Malay, Hebrew and English-speaking settings without changing shape much.
- Familiar in sound while remaining uncommon on the ground — most classrooms will have just one.
- The transliterations compete: Zakariya, Zakariyya, Zakaria, Zakariyah and the biblical Zechariah and Zachariah all circulate. Expect to spell it out often, and to see it written another way on forms.
- Four syllables means most people will reach for Zak within a week. If you dislike the short form, it is worth deciding early how you will steer it.
- Because Zak also serves Zachary, Isaac and Zane, the nickname alone will not tell people which full name stands behind it.
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What they receive
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Zakariya
Masculine · #1128 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zakariyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,500 people named Zakariya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Zakariya?
- Zakariya is the most-used spelling in US records — 189 of the 406 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Zakaria, Zakariah, Zackariah, Zakariyah, Zakariyya, Zacariah and Zakarya.
- How popular is the name Zakariya in 2025?
- Zakariya ranks #1128 among US boy names in 2025, with 189 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zakariya?
- About 1 in every 9,037 US boys born in 2025 was named Zakariya — 189 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zakariya with classmates?
- Zakariya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zakariya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eleazar#1128 · Lucius#1128 · Ved#1131 · Eidan#1132 · Carl#1132 · Darren#1132 · Atharv#1132 · Bronx#1132
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zakariya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zakariya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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