Zebediah
Masculine · “the Lord has given”
Zebediah is the longer form of a name the Gospels give in Greek as Zebedee: a Hebrew sentence saying that the Lord has given. Three men in Chronicles carry it, and the fisherman whose sons left him in the boat is the same name in a shorter dress.
How old is the name Zebediah?
Zebediah first appears in US birth records in 1978 — 47 years ago. The typical Zebediah alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 600 people named Zebediah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zebediah most popular?
Zebediah peaked in 1979, reaching #2777 nationally. Today it ranks #5208, 2,431 places below that high. See the whole 1979 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Zevadyah to Zebediah
The story of Zebediah
The name appears several times in Chronicles, attached to officials and Levites, and then in Greek dress in the Gospels as the father of James and John. English-speaking Protestants took up both forms after the Reformation, and Zebediah in particular appears in eighteenth and nineteenth-century American records, part of a taste for long Old Testament names that also produced Hezekiah, Jedediah and Obadiah. It has been rare since and is coming back with the rest of that family.
Meaning
the Lord has given
Hebrew Zevadyah, from a verb meaning to give or bestow, joined to Yah, a short form of the divine name. Zebedee is the Greek contraction of the same name.
How the name formed
- Zevadyah
- Zebadiah
- Zebediah
Related forms: זבדיה · Zebadiah · Zebedaios
Pronouncing Zebediah
zeb-uh-DY-uh
Four syllables, stress on the third. The -iah ending is said the same way as in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Nicknames for Zebediah
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
- 1978
- Most boys named
- 200726 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2777reached in 1979
- Change vs 2024
- +5.9%18 in 2025, from 17
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.
Zebediah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- זבדיה in Hebrew — transliteration
- Zebadiah in English — spelling variant
- Zebedaios in Greek — related form
Zebediahs among us
people named Zebediah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 94,893 born in 2025 was named Zebediah
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 Ollin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zebediah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ollin climbed just as high around 1930, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ollin's path sketches the road Zebediah is walking now.
Zebediah 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
Zebediah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zebediah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Zeb is a strong ready short form with an American history of its own.
- The meaning is a complete sentence and a warm one.
- It is biblical without being one of the biblical names in heavy use.
- Four syllables is long for American forms and gets clipped without being asked.
- Zebadiah and Zebediah are both used, and bible translations differ too.
- It reads as strongly nineteenth-century American, which is charm to some families and weight to others.
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What they receive
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Zebediah
Masculine · #5208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zebediahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Zebediah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zebediah in 2025?
- Zebediah ranks #5208 among US boy names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zebediah?
- About 1 in every 94,893 US boys born in 2025 was named Zebediah — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zebediah with classmates?
- Zebediah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zebediah
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 Zebediah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zebediah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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