Damiah
A feminine Arabic name meaning "tears" or "teardrops".
Name Census estimates that about 396 living Americans carry the first name Damiah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Damiah today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Damiah births was 2012 (26 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Damiah. 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.
People living today
396
~ 1 in 865,541 Americans
Peak year
2012
26 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#15,778
Tracked since 1998
Census
Damiah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 266 people with the first name Damiah, which placed it at #31,950 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
#31,950
National first-name rank
People counted
266
266 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
76.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Damiah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Damiah is Black at 76.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (10.2%) and White (6.8%). 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 Damiah 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 Damiah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American76.3% · 203
- Two or more races10.2% · 27
- White6.8% · 18
- Hispanic or Latino4.1% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.9% · 5
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 2
Popularity
Damiah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Damiah from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 181 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2010s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Damiah 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 Damiah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Damiahs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Damiah
The name Damiah has its origins in Arabic and is derived from the word "damiyah" meaning "gentle" or "mild-tempered." It is believed to have first emerged in the Middle East during the medieval period, around the 7th to 13th centuries CE.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Damiah can be found in the writings of the renowned Arab poet, Abu Tammam (born 805 CE, died 845 CE), who mentioned a woman by this name in one of his poems. This suggests that the name was in use among the Arabic-speaking populations during the Abbasid Caliphate.
The name Damiah also appears in some Islamic historical texts and records, often as the name of female figures from that era. However, it is worth noting that the name was not particularly widespread or popular during the early Islamic period.
One of the most notable historical figures bearing the name Damiah was Damiah al-Qushayri (born around 1010 CE, died 1072 CE), a renowned Sufi scholar and mystic from Nishapur, in present-day Iran. Her works and teachings on Sufism had a significant influence on the development of Islamic mysticism.
Another prominent individual with this name was Damiah al-Sarkhasi (born around 1080 CE, died 1153 CE), a renowned Islamic jurist and scholar from Sarkhas, in present-day Turkmenistan. He was an influential figure in the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence and authored several important works on Islamic law.
In the 13th century, there was a Damiah bint al-Muhassin, a woman who was a prominent poet and calligrapher in the court of the Ayyubid ruler, al-Malik al-Kamil, in Egypt and Syria.
Another notable figure with this name was Damiah al-Waziri (born around 1470 CE, died 1542 CE), a female scholar and poet from Damascus, who was renowned for her mastery of Arabic literature and her contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of the city during the Mamluk period.
While the name Damiah has its roots in Arabic and Islamic history, it has since been adopted and used in various other cultures and communities around the world, although it remains relatively uncommon in most regions.
People
Damiah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Damiah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Damiah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Damiah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 396 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Damiah 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 865,541 US residents.
Is Damiah a common name?
We classify Damiah as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 400 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Damiah most popular?
The single biggest year for Damiah was 2012, when 26 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Damiah is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Damiah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 266 people with the name Damiah, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #31,950 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 Damiah 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 Damiah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Damiah leans strongly female. 258 people counted with this name were female (97.0%), compared with 8 male bearers (3.0%). 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 Damiah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Damiah is Black at 76.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (10.2%) and White (6.8%). 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 Damiah most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Damiah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 76.3% (203 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 Damiah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Damiah a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Damiah 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 Damiah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Damiah 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 Damiah 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 Damiah as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.