Nasir
Protector, helper, or defender in Arabic.
Name Census estimates that about 17,167 living Americans carry the first name Nasir. It sits at #448 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Nasir today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nasir births was 2019 (934 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nasir. 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 Nasir with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Nasir is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 54 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Nasir is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 14 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
17K
~ 1 in 19,966 Americans
Peak year
2019
934 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#448
Tracked since 1973
Census
Nasir in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 12,032 people with the first name Nasir, which placed it at #2,191 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
#2,191
National first-name rank
People counted
12K
12,032 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
70.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nasir
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nasir is Black at 70.1%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (12.2%) and Hispanic (7.9%). 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 Nasir 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 Nasir at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American70.1% · 8,433
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.2% · 1,463
- Hispanic or Latino7.9% · 949
- Two or more races6.0% · 719
- White3.6% · 436
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 32
Gender
Gender distribution for Nasir
Out of the 17,344 babies given the name Nasir since 1880, 99.7% 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.
Nasir as a male name
- Ranked #448 in 2024
- 702 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (928 births)
Nasir as a female name
- Ranked #14,735 in 2021
- 6 female births in 2021
- Peak: 2016 (8 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nasir appears almost entirely male. Of the 12,030 people counted with this name, 99.2% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Nasir: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nasir 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 6,294 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Nasir remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nasir 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 Nasir during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nasirs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey recorded the most babies named Nasir, while Nebraska, Rhode Island, Kansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 437 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Nasir
The name Nasir has its origins in the Arabic language and is derived from the root word 'nasr', which means 'victory' or 'triumph'. It is believed to have emerged during the early Islamic era, around the 7th century AD, when Arabic culture and language were spreading across the Middle East and North Africa.
One of the earliest recorded usages of the name Nasir can be found in the Quran, the holy book of Islam, where it appears as a descriptive term for God as the 'Victorious' or 'Giver of Victory'. This association with divine triumph likely contributed to the name's popularity among Muslim communities.
In the annals of Islamic history, several notable figures have borne the name Nasir. One of the most prominent was Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a renowned Persian polymath who lived from 1201 to 1274 AD. He made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Maragheh Observatory.
Another notable bearer of the name was Nasir Khusraw, a Persian poet, philosopher, and traveler who lived from 1004 to 1088 AD. His epic poem, the Safarnameh, chronicled his extensive travels across the Middle East and Central Asia, providing valuable insights into the cultures and societies of that era.
In the realm of Islamic mysticism, Nasir al-Din al-Bukhari, who lived from 1318 to 1389 AD, was a prominent Sufi master and the founder of the Naqshbandi order, one of the most influential Sufi brotherhoods in the Muslim world.
Moving forward in history, Nasir al-Din al-Albani, born in 1914 and passed away in 1999, was a renowned Syrian scholar and hadith expert who made significant contributions to the study and authentication of prophetic traditions in Islam.
Beyond the Islamic world, the name Nasir has also been adopted by individuals of diverse backgrounds. One notable example is Nasir Jones, better known as the legendary American rapper Nas, who has been a prominent figure in hip-hop culture since the early 1990s.
People
Nasir + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nasir as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nasir: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nasir?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 17,167 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nasir 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 19,966 US residents.
Is Nasir a common name?
We classify Nasir as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 17,344 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nasir most popular?
The single biggest year for Nasir was 2019, when 934 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nasir is about 14 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nasir in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 12,032 people with the name Nasir, or 3.98 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,191 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 Nasir 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 Nasir?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nasir appears almost entirely male. Of the 12,030 people counted with this name, 99.2% 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 Nasir?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nasir is Black at 70.1%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (12.2%) and Hispanic (7.9%). 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 Nasir most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Nasir in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.1% (8,433 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 Nasir in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nasir a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Nasir 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 Nasir still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nasir 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 Nasir 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 Nasir as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many people have the name Nasir on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.