Amos
A masculine given name of Hebrew origin meaning "strong, carried".
Name Census estimates that about 19,236 living Americans carry the first name Amos. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Amos today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Amos births was 1922 (558 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Amos. 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 Amos with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Amos is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 64 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
19K
~ 1 in 17,818 Americans
Peak year
1922
558 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#697
Tracked since 1880
Census
Amos in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 16,826 people with the first name Amos, which placed it at #1,783 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
#1,783
National first-name rank
People counted
17K
16,826 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
5.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
55.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Amos
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amos is White at 55.0%. The next largest groups are Black (30.1%) and Hispanic (6.7%). 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 Amos 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 Amos at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White55.0% · 9,260
- Black or African American30.1% · 5,066
- Hispanic or Latino6.7% · 1,126
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.3% · 548
- Two or more races2.8% · 474
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.1% · 352
Gender
Gender distribution for Amos
Out of the 36,209 babies given the name Amos since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Amos as a male name
- Ranked #697 in 2024
- 386 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1922 (558 births)
Amos as a female name
- Ranked #6,646 in 1969
- 6 female births in 1969
- Peak: 1927 (12 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Amos appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,832 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Amos: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Amos from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 4,923 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Amos remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Amos 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 Amos during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Amos' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 43 states and territories. Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Amos, while Montana, District of Columbia, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 645 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Amos
The given name Amos originates from the Hebrew language and culture. It is derived from the Hebrew word 'amos', which means 'borne' or 'carried'. The name Amos can be traced back to ancient times and has deep roots in the Hebrew Bible.
One of the earliest mentions of the name Amos is found in the Book of Amos, which is part of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets) section. The Book of Amos is attributed to the prophet Amos, who lived in the 8th century BCE. He was a shepherd from the town of Tekoa in Judah and is known for his prophecies condemning social injustice and calling for repentance.
Another notable figure in the Bible who bore the name Amos was the father of the prophet Isaiah. He is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah (1:1) as "Amos the prophet".
Throughout history, several prominent individuals have carried the name Amos. One of the earliest recorded examples is Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), an American teacher, philosopher, and reformer. He was a prominent member of the Transcendentalist movement and the father of the renowned author Louisa May Alcott.
Amos Tversky (1937-1996) was an Israeli psychologist renowned for his work on decision-making and behavioral economics. He collaborated with Daniel Kahneman, and their research on cognitive biases and heuristics earned Kahneman the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.
Amos Oz (1939-2018) was a highly acclaimed Israeli writer, novelist, and intellectual. He was a prominent voice in the Israeli peace movement and a recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Israel Prize for Literature in 1998.
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), an American teacher, philosopher, and reformer, was a prominent member of the Transcendentalist movement and the father of the renowned author Louisa May Alcott.
Amos Gitai (born 1950) is an Israeli filmmaker, screenwriter, and author. He is known for his politically charged films that often explore the complexities of Israeli society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
People
Amos + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Amos 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
Amos: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Amos?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 19,236 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Amos 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 17,818 US residents.
Is Amos a common name?
We classify Amos as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 36,209 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Amos most popular?
The single biggest year for Amos was 1922, when 558 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Amos is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Amos in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 16,826 people with the name Amos, or 5.57 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,783 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 Amos 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 Amos?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Amos appears almost entirely male. Of the 16,832 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Amos?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amos is White at 55.0%. The next largest groups are Black (30.1%) and Hispanic (6.7%). 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 Amos most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Amos in the 2020 Census, accounting for 55.0% (9,260 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 Amos in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Amos a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Amos in the SSA data are male. 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 Amos still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Amos 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 Amos 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 have the name Amos?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.