Ziggy
A diminutive of the Yiddish name Selig, meaning "blessed, fortunate, happy."
Name Census estimates that about 1,623 living Americans carry the first name Ziggy. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 84.3% of registrations being male. The average person named Ziggy today is around 8 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ziggy births was 2022 (211 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ziggy. 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 Ziggy with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Ziggy is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 8 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.6K
~ 1 in 211,186 Americans
Peak year
2022
211 babies that year
Average age
8
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,358
Tracked since 1988
Census
Ziggy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,069 people with the first name Ziggy, which placed it at #11,817 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
#11,817
National first-name rank
People counted
1.1K
1,069 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
52.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ziggy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ziggy is White at 52.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.5%) and Two or More Races (11.7%). 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 Ziggy 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 Ziggy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White52.5% · 561
- Hispanic or Latino18.5% · 198
- Two or more races11.7% · 125
- Black or African American11.5% · 123
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.1% · 54
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 8
Gender
Gender distribution for Ziggy
Ziggy leans heavily male at 84.3% of total registrations, but 257 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Ziggy as a male name
- Ranked #1,358 in 2024
- 140 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (168 births)
Ziggy as a female name
- Ranked #4,649 in 2024
- 30 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (43 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ziggy leans strongly male. 887 people counted with this name were male (83.2%), compared with 179 female bearers (16.8%).
Popularity
Ziggy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ziggy from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 876 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ziggy 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 Ziggy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ziggys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 19 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Ziggy, while Wisconsin, Virginia, Utah recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 32 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ziggy
The name Ziggy is believed to have originated as a nickname or diminutive form of the German name Siegfried, which itself derives from the Old Norse words "sigr" meaning victory and "friðr" meaning peace or protection. The name Siegfried was popularized in the medieval Germanic heroic legend, the Nibelungenlied, where Siegfried was a central character.
While the exact origin of the nickname Ziggy is unclear, it likely emerged as a shortened and anglicized version of Siegfried, with the "Zig" sound representing the "Sieg" portion of the original name. This nickname form may have been used as early as the 19th century, particularly among German immigrant communities in English-speaking countries.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Ziggy can be found in the works of author and playwright Elmer Rice, who wrote a play called "The Adding Machine" in 1923, featuring a character named Ziggy. This may have been an intentional nod to the German roots of the name, as the play explored themes of dehumanization and the struggles of the working class.
In the 20th century, the name Ziggy gained wider recognition and popularity, thanks in part to several notable individuals who bore the name. These include British rock musician Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie's alter ego), born in 1947, and American cartoonist Ziggy (Tom Wilson), whose comic strip "Ziggy" debuted in 1971.
Other famous people named Ziggy throughout history include Ziggy Elman (1914-1968), an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader in the swing era, and Ziggy Marley (born 1968), a Jamaican reggae musician and son of the legendary Bob Marley.
Ziggy Palmiro (1956-2014) was a Filipino boxer and actor, who won a gold medal at the 1979 Pacific Games and later appeared in several Philippine action films in the 1980s.
While the name Ziggy may have started as a nickname or shortened form, it has since gained recognition as a unique and distinct given name in its own right, with its own cultural and historical significance.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Ziggy
People
Ziggy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ziggy as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Z
Other first names starting with Z with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ziggy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ziggy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,623 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ziggy 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 211,186 US residents.
Is Ziggy a common name?
We classify Ziggy as "Rare". It ranks above 92.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,635 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ziggy most popular?
The single biggest year for Ziggy was 2022, when 211 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ziggy is about 8 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ziggy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,069 people with the name Ziggy, or 0.35 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,817 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 Ziggy 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 Ziggy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ziggy leans strongly male. 887 people counted with this name were male (83.2%), compared with 179 female bearers (16.8%). 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 Ziggy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ziggy is White at 52.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.5%) and Two or More Races (11.7%). 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 Ziggy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ziggy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 52.5% (561 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 Ziggy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ziggy a male name?
Yes, 84.3% of people registered as Ziggy 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 Ziggy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ziggy 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 Ziggy 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 Ziggy 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.