Yahya
A masculine given name of Arabic origin meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 4,085 living Americans carry the first name Yahya. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Yahya today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yahya births was 2024 (378 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yahya. 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 Yahya with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Yahya is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 12 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
4.1K
~ 1 in 83,906 Americans
Peak year
2024
378 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2024 SSA rank
#706
Tracked since 1972
Census
Yahya in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,010 people with the first name Yahya, which placed it at #4,587 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
#4,587
National first-name rank
People counted
4.0K
4,010 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
47.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yahya
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yahya is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (27.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (18.2%). 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 Yahya 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 Yahya at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White47.1% · 1,889
- Black or African American27.9% · 1,117
- Asian and Pacific Islander18.2% · 730
- Two or more races5.6% · 224
- Hispanic or Latino1.1% · 46
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Yahya
Out of the 4,125 babies given the name Yahya since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Yahya as a male name
- Ranked #706 in 2024
- 378 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (378 births)
Yahya as a female name
- Ranked #16,663 in 2011
- 6 female births in 2011
- Peak: 2011 (6 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yahya leans strongly male. 3,978 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 42 female bearers (1.0%).
Popularity
Yahya: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yahya 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 1,840 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Yahya remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yahya 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 Yahya during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Yahyas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 24 states and territories. New York, California, Texas recorded the most babies named Yahya, while Connecticut, Arkansas, Wisconsin recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 122 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Yahya
Yahya is a masculine given name of Arabic origin, derived from the Hebrew name Yohanan, which means "Yahweh is gracious" or "God is merciful." It is also the Arabic form of the biblical name John, and is widely used in the Arab world and among Muslims.
The name Yahya has its roots in the Semitic languages, with similar spellings and pronunciations found in various ancient texts and religious scriptures. In the Quran, Yahya is mentioned as the name of John the Baptist, who was a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ in the Christian tradition.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Yahya dates back to the 7th century AD, when it was borne by Yahya ibn Abi Kathir, a prominent Islamic scholar and hadith narrator from Kufa, Iraq, who lived between 629 and 738 AD.
Throughout history, several notable figures have carried the name Yahya. One of the most famous was Yahya ibn Adi, a 10th-century Arab philosopher, mathematician, and translator from Basra, Iraq, who lived from 893 to 974 AD. He is renowned for his contributions to the fields of logic, physics, and metaphysics.
Another notable figure was Yahya al-Barmaki, a member of the influential Barmakid family and a vizier (minister) during the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th century AD. He served under the famous Caliph Harun al-Rashid and was known for his wisdom and administrative skills.
In the 12th century, Yahya al-Nahwi was a renowned Arab grammarian and linguist from Mosul, Iraq, who lived from 1098 to 1180 AD. He made significant contributions to the study of Arabic grammar and is considered one of the most influential scholars in this field.
Another famous bearer of the name was Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, a 9th-century Persian mathematician and astronomer from Baghdad, who lived from 789 to 847 AD. He is credited with developing new techniques for solving algebraic equations and making advancements in the field of trigonometry.
Over the centuries, the name Yahya has continued to be popular among Muslim communities, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, where it is often given to honor the biblical figure John the Baptist or to express gratitude towards God.
People
Yahya + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yahya as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yahya: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yahya?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,085 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yahya 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 83,906 US residents.
Is Yahya a common name?
We classify Yahya as "Rare". It ranks above 96.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,125 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yahya most popular?
The single biggest year for Yahya was 2024, when 378 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yahya is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yahya in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,010 people with the name Yahya, or 1.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,587 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 Yahya 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 Yahya?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yahya leans strongly male. 3,978 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 42 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 Yahya?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yahya is White at 47.1%. The next largest groups are Black (27.9%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (18.2%). 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 Yahya most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Yahya in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.1% (1,889 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 Yahya in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yahya a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Yahya 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 Yahya still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yahya 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 Yahya 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 share the name Yahya?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.