Zedekiah
Masculine · “the Lord is righteousness”
Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, put on the throne by Babylon and destroyed by it: the city fell in his eleventh year and the exile began. His name is a sentence about justice, and the irony of that has been noticed by readers for two and a half thousand years.
How old is the name Zedekiah?
Zedekiah first appears in US birth records in 1982 — 43 years ago. The typical Zedekiah is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 700 people named Zedekiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Zedekiah most popular?
Zedekiah peaked in 2019, reaching #2851 nationally. Today it ranks #4857, 2,006 places below that high. See the whole 2019 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Tzidqiyahu to Zedekiah
The story of Zedekiah
The books of Kings and Jeremiah tell the story in detail: a king installed by a foreign power, caught between advisers who urged rebellion and a prophet who told him plainly it would end badly. It ended badly. The name survived the fall, kept by Jewish families and taken up by English-speaking Protestants after the Reformation, when Old Testament names of every kind came into use. It has always been rare, and it has been returning in the United States with the wider revival of long biblical names.
Meaning
the Lord is righteousness
Hebrew Tzidqiyahu: tzedeq, righteousness or justice, joined to Yahu, a short form of the divine name. The name was given to him at his accession, replacing the name he had been born with.
How the name formed
- Tzidqiyahu
- Sedekias
- Zedekiah
Related forms: צדקיהו · Sedekias · Sedequías
Pronouncing Zedekiah
zed-uh-KY-uh
Four syllables, stress on the third. The -iah ending is said the same way as in Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Nicknames for Zedekiah
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
- 1982
- Most boys named
- 201943 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2851reached in 2019
- Change vs 2024
- −31.0%20 in 2025, from 29
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.
Zedekiah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- צדקיהו in Hebrew — transliteration
- Sedekias in Greek — same name
- Sedequías in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Tennessee.
Zedekiahs among us
people named Zedekiah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 85,404 born in 2025 was named Zedekiah
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 Naji test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Zedekiah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Naji climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Naji's path sketches the road Zedekiah is walking now.
Zedekiah 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
Zedekiah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Zedekiah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It offers several genuinely different short forms, Zed and Zeke and Kiah among them.
- The meaning is a complete sentence and can be stated in four words.
- It is biblical without being one of the biblical names everyone already uses.
- Four syllables is long for American forms and gets clipped without being asked.
- Its bearer's story ends in defeat and exile, which some families would rather not carry.
- Zechariah, Zedekiah and Hezekiah are close enough to be confused by people writing quickly.
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Zedekiah
Masculine · #4857 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Zedekiahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Zedekiah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Zedekiah in 2025?
- Zedekiah ranks #4857 among US boy names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Zedekiah?
- About 1 in every 85,404 US boys born in 2025 was named Zedekiah — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Zedekiah with classmates?
- Zedekiah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Zedekiah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Carlyle#4857 · Russ#4857 · Hercules#4857 · Marcial#4857 · Lauro#4857 · Marin#4857 · Gil#4857 · Aloysius#4857
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Zedekiah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Zedekiah and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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