Zakary
Masculine · “The Lord has remembered”
Zakary is Zachary with the ch taken out — a spelling that answers a fair question, since English has no obvious reason to write a plain k sound as ch. The name underneath is Hebrew and old: the Lord has remembered.
How old is the name Zakary?
Zakary first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Zakary alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 5,500 people named Zakary are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zakary most popular?
Zakary peaked in 2002, reaching #684 nationally. Today it ranks #5208, 4,524 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
Where it comes from
From Zĕḵaryāh to Zakary
The story of Zakary
Zechariah is one of the twelve minor prophets, and a second Zechariah — Zacharias in Greek — is the father of John the Baptist, struck dumb in the temple until the child was named. Both put the name into Christian use. English took it up seriously after the Reformation, and it was steady in Puritan New England. Its great American moment came in the 1990s, when Zachary climbed into the top ten. Zakary is a small stream running beside that flood: it appears in quantity from the late 1980s and peaks in the early 2000s, in the same years as Zackary, Zachery and Zackery, all of them attempts to write the sound more plainly.
Meaning
The Lord has remembered
From Hebrew Zĕḵaryāh, from zāḵar, to remember, and the divine name Yah. The reading is settled and appears in every source. The ch of Zachary comes from the Greek chi in Zacharias, and represents a k sound in English; the Zakary spelling simply removes a Greek spelling convention that English never needed.
How the name formed
- Zĕḵaryāh
- Zacharias
- Zachary
- Zakary
Related forms: זְכַרְיָה · Zacharias · Zakariyya · Zacharie · Zaccaria
Pronouncing Zakary
ZAK-uh-ree
Three syllables, stress on the first, identical to Zachary. The k spelling changes nothing in speech.
Nicknames for Zakary
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 2003239 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #684reached in 2002
- Change vs 2024
- −18.2%18 in 2025, from 22
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.
Zakary in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- זְכַרְיָה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Zacharias in Greek — related form
- Zakariyya in Arabic — related form
- Zacharie in French — related form
- Zaccaria in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Zakarys among us
people named Zakary are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 94,893 born in 2025 was named Zakary
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Zakary
- #5208
- Zakary on the 2025 chart
- #526
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Zakary went to 18 boys in 2025, but Zakari, Zackary and Zacari and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 462, which makes it the 526th most-given boys’ name of the year — 4,682 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 3,697 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,893 for Zakary 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 Broderick test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zakary's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Broderick climbed just as high around 1956, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Broderick's path sketches the road Zakary is walking now.
Zakary 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
Zakary beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zakary in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling is more honest about the sound than the standard one.
- Zak follows from it directly without a spelling change.
- The Hebrew meaning is settled and easy to explain.
- Zachary is the standard spelling and will be written by default.
- Zachary, Zackary, Zachery and Zakary are four spellings of one name.
- The 1990s peak of Zachary dates the whole family firmly.
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Zakary
Masculine · #5208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zakarys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,500 people named Zakary are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Zakary?
- Zakary is one of 7 recorded spellings. Zakari is the more common one — 206 births in 2025 against 18 for Zakary.
- How popular is the name Zakary in 2025?
- Zakary ranks #5208 among US boy names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zakary?
- About 1 in every 94,893 US boys born in 2025 was named Zakary — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zakary with classmates?
- Zakary will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zakary
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rodger#5208 · Eusebio#5208 · Boy#5208 · Randal#5208 · Gable#5208 · Jessy#5208 · Kelby#5208 · Jens#5208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zakary? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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