Yashua
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is salvation".
Name Census estimates that about 331 living Americans carry the first name Yashua. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Yashua today is around 17 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yashua births was 2007 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yashua. 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 Yashua with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
331
~ 1 in 1,035,512 Americans
Peak year
2007
19 babies that year
Average age
17
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,699
Tracked since 1992
Census
Yashua in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 284 people with the first name Yashua, which placed it at #30,583 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
#30,583
National first-name rank
People counted
284
284 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
48.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yashua
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yashua is Black at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (36.3%) and White (7.0%). 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 Yashua 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 Yashua at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American48.9% · 139
- Hispanic or Latino36.3% · 103
- White7.0% · 20
- Two or more races4.2% · 12
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 9
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 1
Popularity
Yashua: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yashua from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 121 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Yashua remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yashua 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 Yashua during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Yashua
The given name Yashua has its origins in ancient Aramaic, a Semitic language spoken in the Middle East during the first millennium BC and the early centuries AD. It is a variant of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which was a common name among Jewish people during the Second Temple period.
The name Yashua is derived from the Hebrew verb "yesha," meaning "to save" or "to deliver." It is closely related to the Hebrew name Yehoshua (Joshua), which has the same root and meaning. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Septuagint, the name Yeshua is rendered as Iesous, which later became the name Jesus in English.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Yashua can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish religious manuscripts dating back to the third century BC to the first century AD. These scrolls contain references to individuals with the name Yashua, indicating its use among the Jewish community during that period.
In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, the name Yashua is used to refer to Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity. The Gospels, written in Greek, use the name Iesous, which is a translation of the Hebrew Yeshua or Aramaic Yashua.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Yashua or its variants:
1. Yashua ben Sira (circa 180-175 BC), a Jewish scholar and author of the Wisdom of Ben Sira, also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus.
2. Yashua ben Gamla (circa 63 BC-3 AD), a Jewish high priest and a member of the Sanhedrin during the time of King Herod the Great.
3. Yashua ben Ananias (circa 62 AD), a Jewish preacher who, according to the historian Josephus, prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
4. Yashua ben Damneus (circa 100 AD), a Jewish teacher and a leader of the Sanhedrin during the early Rabbinic period.
5. Yashua ben Levi (circa 250 AD), a Jewish scholar and a prominent figure in the compilation of the Mishnah, the first major written collection of Jewish oral traditions.
It is important to note that the exact spelling and pronunciation of the name may have varied across different regions and time periods, reflecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of the areas where it was used.
People
Yashua + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yashua 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
Yashua: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yashua?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 331 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yashua 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 1,035,512 US residents.
Is Yashua a common name?
We classify Yashua as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 335 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yashua most popular?
The single biggest year for Yashua was 2007, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yashua is about 17 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yashua in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 284 people with the name Yashua, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #30,583 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 Yashua 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 Yashua?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yashua leans strongly male. 260 people counted with this name were male (92.5%), compared with 21 female bearers (7.5%). 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 Yashua?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yashua is Black at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (36.3%) and White (7.0%). 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 Yashua most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Yashua in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.9% (139 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 Yashua in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yashua a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Yashua 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 Yashua still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yashua 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 Yashua 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 are called Yashua?
You can see how many people share the name Yashua on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.