Lazar
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has helped".
Name Census estimates that about 765 living Americans carry the first name Lazar. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Lazar today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lazar births was 2012 (39 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lazar. 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 Lazar with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
765
~ 1 in 448,045 Americans
Peak year
2012
39 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,734
Tracked since 1931
Census
Lazar in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,185 people with the first name Lazar, which placed it at #10,994 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
#10,994
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2K
1,185 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lazar
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lazar is White at 87.4%. The next largest groups are Black (5.2%) and Hispanic (2.9%). 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 Lazar 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 Lazar at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.4% · 1,036
- Black or African American5.2% · 62
- Hispanic or Latino2.9% · 34
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 25
- Two or more races2.1% · 25
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 3
Popularity
Lazar: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lazar from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 258 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Lazar remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lazar 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 Lazar during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lazars live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. New York, Illinois, California recorded the most babies named Lazar, while Florida, California, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 55 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lazar
The given name Lazar has its origins in the Late Latin name Lazarus, which is derived from the Hebrew name El'azar, meaning "God has helped". This name has been associated with Lazarus of Bethany, a figure mentioned in the New Testament who was raised from the dead by Jesus Christ.
The name Lazar has been particularly prevalent in Eastern European countries, especially in the Balkans and parts of Russia. It is a common name among Slavic and Orthodox Christian communities, where it has been used for centuries. In some Slavic languages, such as Russian and Serbian, the name is spelled as "Lazar".
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Lazar can be found in the writings of the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea, who lived in the 6th century AD. He mentions a military commander named Lazar who served under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
Throughout history, there have been several notable figures bearing the name Lazar. One of the most famous was Lazar the Serb, also known as Saint Lazar of Kosovo (c. 1329-1389), a Serbian prince and the leader of the Serbian army during the Battle of Kosovo against the Ottoman Empire in 1389.
Another prominent figure was Lazar Hrebeljanović (c. 1329-1389), a Serbian nobleman and the founder of the Moravian Serbia, a short-lived medieval Serbian state in the late 14th century. He was also the father of Saint Lazar of Kosovo.
In the 19th century, Lazar Karavelov (1834-1867) was a Bulgarian writer, journalist, and revolutionary who played a significant role in the Bulgarian National Revival movement and the struggle for Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (1893-1991) was a Soviet politician and close associate of Joseph Stalin. He served as a member of the Politburo and played a crucial role in the Soviet industrialization and collectivization efforts in the 1930s.
Lazar Berman (1930-2005) was a renowned Soviet and Russian pianist, known for his interpretations of the works of Romantic composers such as Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann. He was a recipient of the prestigious State Prize of the Russian Federation.
People
Lazar + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lazar as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lazar: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lazar?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 765 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lazar 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 448,045 US residents.
Is Lazar a common name?
We classify Lazar as "Very Rare". It ranks above 88.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 787 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lazar most popular?
The single biggest year for Lazar was 2012, when 39 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lazar is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lazar in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,185 people with the name Lazar, or 0.39 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,994 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 Lazar 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 Lazar?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lazar leans strongly male. 1,180 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 12 female bearers (1.0%). 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 Lazar?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lazar is White at 87.4%. The next largest groups are Black (5.2%) and Hispanic (2.9%). 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 Lazar most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Lazar in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.4% (1,036 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 Lazar in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lazar a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Lazar 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 Lazar still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lazar 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 Lazar 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 common is the name Lazar?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.