Aliyah
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "rising" or "ascending".
Name Census estimates that about 47,267 living Americans carry the first name Aliyah. It sits at #235 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Aliyah today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Aliyah births was 2011 (2,301 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Aliyah. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Aliyah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Aliyah is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 16 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
47K
~ 1 in 7,251 Americans
Peak year
2011
2,301 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2019 SSA rank
#235
Tracked since 1971
Census
Aliyah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 33,707 people with the first name Aliyah, which placed it at #1,170 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,170
National first-name rank
People counted
34K
33,707 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
11.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
32.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Aliyah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aliyah is Hispanic at 32.1%. The next largest groups are Black (28.9%) and White (23.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Aliyah described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Aliyah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino32.1% · 10,806
- Black or African American28.9% · 9,741
- White23.4% · 7,899
- Two or more races11.4% · 3,834
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.3% · 1,097
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 330
Gender
Gender distribution for Aliyah
Out of the 47,854 babies given the name Aliyah since 1880, 99.9% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Aliyah as a male name
- Ranked #12,225 in 2019
- 5 male births in 2019
- Peak: 2004 (11 births)
Aliyah as a female name
- Ranked #235 in 2024
- 1,311 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2011 (2,301 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aliyah appears almost entirely female. Of the 33,713 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Aliyah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Aliyah from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 20,183 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Aliyah remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Aliyah by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Aliyah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Aliyahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Aliyah, while Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 920 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Aliyah
The name Aliyah has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture, and can be traced back to ancient times. The word "aliyah" in Hebrew means "ascent" or "going up," and is often used to refer to the immigration of Jews to the land of Israel.
The earliest recorded use of the name Aliyah dates back to the biblical period, where it appears in the Book of Ezra as a reference to the return of Jews from Babylonian exile to Jerusalem. In this context, "aliyah" was used to describe the physical and spiritual journey of the Jewish people back to their homeland.
Throughout history, the name Aliyah has held significant meaning and symbolism within the Jewish faith. It has been associated with the concept of returning to one's roots and the ongoing connection between the Jewish diaspora and the land of Israel.
One of the earliest known individuals with the name Aliyah was Aliyah bat Judah, a Jewish scholar and poet who lived in the 13th century. She was renowned for her literary works and contributions to Jewish scholarship during the Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain.
Another notable figure bearing the name Aliyah was Aliyah Bet, a codeword used to refer to the illegal immigration of Jews to British-mandated Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. This period marked a significant chapter in the history of the Jewish people's efforts to establish a homeland in modern-day Israel.
In more recent times, the name Aliyah has been carried by several prominent individuals, including Aliyah Diane King, an American actress and singer born in 1994, and Aliyah O'Brien, a Canadian basketball player born in 1996.
The name Aliyah continues to hold special significance within the Jewish community, symbolizing the deep-rooted connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Its rich historical meaning and cultural resonance have made it a popular choice for many families across generations.
People
Aliyah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Aliyah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Aliyah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Aliyah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 47,267 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Aliyah going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 7,251 US residents.
Is Aliyah a common name?
We classify Aliyah as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 47,854 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Aliyah most popular?
The single biggest year for Aliyah was 2011, when 2,301 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Aliyah is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Aliyah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 33,707 people with the name Aliyah, or 11.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,170 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Aliyah in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Aliyah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aliyah appears almost entirely female. Of the 33,713 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Aliyah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aliyah is Hispanic at 32.1%. The next largest groups are Black (28.9%) and White (23.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Aliyah most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Aliyah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 32.1% (10,806 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Aliyah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Aliyah a female name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Aliyah in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Aliyah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Aliyah in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Aliyah can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Aliyah?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.