FastNamesNoah
Hebrew name meaning "Derived from Hebrew Noach, related to the root nuach, meaning 'rest', 'repose', or 'comfort'.". Ranked 2nd for boys in 2025.
Meaning and origin of Noah
Derived from Hebrew Noach, related to the root nuach, meaning 'rest', 'repose', or 'comfort'.
Linguistically, Noah is classified under Hebrew naming traditions. It is typically pronounced "NOH-uh".
Popularity and ranking
In official US Social Security birth records from 1880 through 2025, Noah has been given to a total of 529,602 boys. It has also been given to 5,020 girls.
Peak year: Noah reached its highest relative share among boys in 2025, when 20,358 babies received the name (11,919 per million births).
All-time best rank: 1st place, first achieved in 2013.
Recent standing (2025): Ranked 2nd with 20,358 births. Ten years earlier in 2015, it ranked 1st (down 1 spots).
Busiest decade: More boys were named Noah in the 2010s than in any other decade (183,378 births).
| Decade | Recorded births |
|---|---|
| 1880s | 895 |
| 1890s | 686 |
| 1900s | 622 |
| 1910s | 1,734 |
| 1920s | 2,284 |
| 1930s | 1,606 |
| 1940s | 1,523 |
| 1950s | 1,456 |
| 1960s | 1,519 |
| 1970s | 5,688 |
| 1980s | 12,385 |
| 1990s | 56,269 |
| 2000s | 143,533 |
| 2010s | 183,378 |
| 2020s | 116,024 |
Source: Social Security Administration, national baby name data, data through 2025. Names given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year aren't published, so totals are a little lower than actual births.
Where Noah is most common in the US
Accounting for when Noah was in fashion nationally, it has been most heavily concentrated in the following states (measured against the expected rate from each state's births):
- Hawaii: 1.9 times the national rate (2,747 births since 1910).
- Vermont: 1.7 times the national rate (984 births since 1910).
- Maine: 1.5 times the national rate (2,294 births since 1910).
- West Virginia: 1.4 times the national rate (3,612 births since 1910).
- Rhode Island: 1.4 times the national rate (1,827 births since 1910).
Source: Social Security Administration, baby names by state, data through 2025. Names given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a state in a year aren't published, so totals are a little lower than actual births.
How many people have the name Noah?
About 513,000 living American boys and men share the name Noah. Additionally, an estimated 5,000 living American girls and women share the name.
The median age of an American named Noah is 14 years old.
Estimated from Social Security Administration records (1880–2025) and official SSA cohort mortality tables.
History of the name Noah
In the Hebrew Bible, Noah was the patriarch instructed by God to build an ark to preserve humanity and animal life through the Great Flood. The name's etymology is glossed in Genesis 5:29 as bringing relief or comfort from the toil of the earth, deriving from the ancient Semitic verbal root denoting rest and tranquility.
Noah was rarely used as a personal name in western Christendom during the Middle Ages, appearing mostly in religious mystery plays. Following the Protestant Reformation, English and New England Puritans enthusiastically revived Old Testament names, making Noah a familiar fixture across seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial communities.
After hovering quietly outside the top 100 for over a century in official American records, Noah began a meteoric ascent in the 1980s and 1990s. The name appealed to modern tastes with its gentle phonetic profile ending in an open vowel. It entered the national top twenty in 2005 and captured the number one spot among American newborn boys from 2013 through 2016, ending Jacob's fourteen-year hold at the top.
Folk etymology and misconceptions
Occasionally conflated with the distinct biblical female name Noa (one of the daughters of Zelophehad in the Book of Numbers), which derives from a separate Hebrew root meaning 'movement'.
Notable people named Noah
- Noah Webster (1758–1843), Lexicographer and author
- Noah Wyle (1971–), Actor
- Noah Baumbach (1969–), Filmmaker
- Noah Kahan (1997–), Singer-songwriter
Variants and related names
Spelling variants
Diminutives and nicknames
Related names
Sources and references
- Patrick Hanks, Kate Hardcastle, Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of First Names (2006), p. 205.
- Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), p. 629.
- Douglas Harper. Online Etymology Dictionary. Reference link.