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Most Popular Christian Names
The most popular biblical and Christian-heritage baby names in the United States, ranked by the May 2026 SSA release covering 2025 births.
Updated
The 2025 leaders
Noah
Noah is a Hebrew name commonly connected with rest or comfort.
in US baby names, 2025
Elizabeth
Elizabeth is a Hebrew-rooted name often understood as my God is an oath or God is my abundance.
in US baby names, 2025
consecutive years Noah has held #2, 2017 to 2025
years as the most chosen biblical boy name, 2013 to 2025
years Elizabeth has held a US Top 30 position
Elizabeth peak in 1887 to her 2025 position
Noah took the top of US boy naming in 2013, lost it to Liam in 2017, and has been runner-up every year since. Liam sits outside this site's biblical and Christian-heritage scope, so Noah remains the most chosen biblical boy name. Elizabeth's continuity is quieter but more durable: she has not left the US Top 30 in the SSA dataset's entire 145-year run. For the broader Hebrew Bible boy-name pattern across the Top 25, see the comeback column. For the cluster of mid-century giants at the tail of the girls Top 25, see What happened to Deborah?
Top 25 Christian boy names in 2025
These are the highest-ranked biblical and Christian-heritage boy names in the May 2026 SSA release, ranked by each name's position across the entire US baby names dataset for 2025. Each rank shows where the name sits among all American boys named that year, not within a curated subset. The Top 10 reads almost entirely Hebrew Bible: Noah, James, Elijah, Benjamin, Levi, Samuel, Ezra, Daniel, John, Asher. John is the single Greek New Testament entry, though its root Yochanan is Hebrew. The Hebrew Bible's dominance of contemporary American boy naming is a real cultural pattern, surfaced more fully in the Hebrew Bible boy-name comeback article and the Biblical boy names collection page.
Noah
Noah is a Hebrew name commonly connected with rest or comfort.
James
James is an English form of Jacob, traditionally connected with supplanter or holder of the heel.
Elijah
Elijah is a Hebrew name meaning my God is the LORD.
Benjamin
Benjamin is a Hebrew name usually understood as son of the right hand.
Levi
Levi is a Hebrew name often connected with joined or attached.
Samuel
Samuel is a Hebrew name commonly connected with God has heard or heard by God.
Ezra
Ezra is a Hebrew name commonly connected with help.
Michael
Michael is a Hebrew name asking 'who is like God?'
Daniel
Daniel is a Hebrew name meaning God is my judge.
John
John is a Hebrew-rooted name meaning the LORD is gracious.
Asher
Asher is a Hebrew name usually connected with happiness or blessing.
Joseph
Joseph is a Hebrew name often explained as may he add or God will add.
Matthew
Matthew is a name of Hebrew origin meaning gift of God.
Luke
Luke is a Greek-rooted name traditionally associated with Lucania or, in later popular use, light.
Thomas
Thomas is an Aramaic name meaning twin.
David
David is a Hebrew name meaning beloved.
Gabriel
Gabriel is a Hebrew name often explained as God is my strength.
Jacob
Jacob is a Hebrew name often connected with holder of the heel or supplanter.
Isaac
Isaac is a Hebrew name usually understood as he laughs or laughter.
Isaiah
Isaiah is a Hebrew name commonly understood as the LORD is salvation.
Caleb
Caleb is a Hebrew biblical name whose exact meaning is debated, often associated with wholehearted loyalty.
Ezekiel
Ezekiel is a Hebrew name usually understood as God strengthens.
Joshua
Joshua is a Hebrew name commonly understood as the LORD is salvation.
Silas
Silas is a New Testament name, often linked with Silvanus and possibly connected with woodland or forest imagery.
Andrew
Andrew is a Greek name often connected with courage, manliness, or strength.
Top 25 Christian girl names in 2025
These are the highest-ranked biblical and Christian-heritage girl names in the May 2026 SSA release, ranked by each name's position across the entire US baby names dataset for 2025. Three patterns are visible immediately. First, the lead spots are held by names with long-running continuity rather than recent momentum: Elizabeth (a US Top 30 fixture since 1880), Chloe, Grace, Abigail. Second, several rising biblical girl names are climbing into view from the middle of the list: Naomi (#47), Lucia (#83, peaked in 2025), Phoebe (#157, also peaked in 2025). And third, at the tail of the Top 25 sits a cluster of mid-20th-century giants whose positions have collapsed: Martha at #713, Deborah at #864, Rebekah at #884. That cluster embeds the What happened to Deborah? column thesis directly into the ranking. See also the Biblical girl names collection page.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth is a Hebrew-rooted name often understood as my God is an oath or God is my abundance.
Chloe
Chloe is a Greek name often understood as green shoot, blooming, or young green growth.
Grace
Grace is an English virtue name meaning favor, mercy, or undeserved kindness.
Abigail
Abigail is a Hebrew name often understood as my father's joy or source of joy.
Naomi
Naomi is a Hebrew name usually understood as pleasant or pleasantness.
Hannah
Hannah is a Hebrew name usually connected with grace or favor.
Leah
Leah is a Hebrew biblical name with a traditional meaning often discussed as weary, delicate, or related to wild cow.
Lucia
Lucia is a Latin name meaning light.
Sarah
Sarah is a Hebrew name commonly understood to mean princess.
Lydia
Lydia is a Greek name meaning woman from Lydia, an ancient region of Asia Minor.
Anna
Anna is a Hebrew-rooted name usually connected with grace or favor.
Esther
Esther is a biblical name often connected with star, though its origin is debated.
Mary
Mary is a biblical name with a debated Hebrew meaning, often linked with Miriam.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a Greek name usually understood as bright, radiant, or shining.
Ruth
Ruth is a Hebrew name often connected with friendship or companion.
Miriam
Miriam is a Hebrew biblical name with a debated meaning, often linked with bitterness, belovedness, or rebellion in later discussion.
Rachel
Rachel is a Hebrew name meaning ewe.
Faith
Faith is an English virtue name meaning trust, belief, or confidence.
Joanna
Joanna is commonly understood as the LORD is gracious.
Hope
Hope is an English virtue name meaning expectation, trust, or confident longing.
Joy
Joy is an English virtue name meaning gladness, delight, or rejoicing.
Felicity
Felicity is a name meaning happiness, blessedness, or good fortune.
Priscilla
Priscilla is a Latin name meaning ancient or venerable.
Martha
Martha is an Aramaic name often understood as lady or mistress of the house.
Monica
Monica is a name of uncertain origin, possibly Berber, sometimes connected to the Latin moneo, "to advise."
Biggest movers in Christian baby naming, 2025
Every year the SSA data surfaces names with momentum (names whose five-year trajectory is rising) and names with collapses (positions held in earlier eras that have given way). Both panels below show that motion at once. The two stories are different in kind. The rising panel is small and male-skewed: of the six biblical or Christian-heritage names with formal rising trends through 2025, five are boy names. That asymmetry is the editorial signal, not a balance failure. The Hebrew Bible boy-name revival explored in the comeback article is genuinely a boy-naming phenomenon. The declining panel is the inverse: all six entries are biblical girl names whose 1880s-to-1955 American Protestant naming culture gave them top positions, and whose late-twentieth-century shift left them outside the Top 700. That cultural arc is the subject of What happened to Deborah?
Rising names
Five Hebrew Bible boy names are formally rising through the 2025 SSA data: Levi at #12, Ezra at #20, Asher at #28, Ezekiel at #61, Silas at #71. Each has either hit an all-time SSA peak in the last few years or sits close to one. Naomi is the only biblical girl name in the same rising cohort, at #47 with a 2023 peak of #44. The pattern reads as a Hebrew-Bible revival drawn from Genesis patriarchs, Old Testament prophets, and the apostolic-era Silas.
Declining names
Six biblical girl names show the most dramatic peak-to-2025 collapses in the catalog. Deborah held #2 in US baby names in 1955 and ranks #864 in 2025, a 862-position fall in seventy years. Martha held the US Top 20 in the 1880s and sits at #713 now. Mary, the most chosen American girl's name for most of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, holds #125 in 2025. Tabitha and Magdalene both sit outside the SSA Top 1000. Rebekah peaked at #143 in 1982 and ranks #884 in 2025. The pattern reflects the cultural shift in mainline Protestant American naming through the late 20th century rather than any change in the figures themselves.
Old Testament vs New Testament names
The split between Old Testament and New Testament naming in 2025 reads asymmetrically. The Old Testament Top 10 is led by Noah and includes four currently-rising names: Levi at #12, Ezra at #20, Asher at #28, and Ezekiel at #61 just outside the Top 10 cutoff. The Hebrew Bible is delivering momentum to American boy naming in a way the New Testament has not since the late 20th century. The New Testament Top 10 is led by James and includes a strong representation of apostolic and Gospel names (John, Matthew, Luke, Thomas, Andrew), but none of them is formally rising. Most sit at solid mid-range positions that read as continuity rather than revival. Where the New Testament does show rising momentum, it lives at the edges: Silas, Phoebe, and Matthias all hit all-time SSA peaks in 2025. Those names are surfaced in the heritage section below. Two collection pages catalog the names in each testament more fully: Old Testament names and New Testament names. One editorial note about how each Top 10 was computed: a name is treated as Old Testament if its primary biblical figure appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, and New Testament if its primary figure appears in the Gospels, Acts, or the apostolic letters. Some names appear in both (Mary is the Hebrew Miriam; John is the Hebrew Yochanan). For this ranking, we used the testament where the most-recognized biblical figure lives.
Top 10 Old Testament names
- Noah #2 in US baby names, 2025
- Elijah #7 in US baby names, 2025
- Benjamin #11 in US baby names, 2025
- Levi #12 in US baby names, 2025
- Samuel #18 in US baby names, 2025
- Ezra #20 in US baby names, 2025
- Daniel #22 in US baby names, 2025
- Asher #28 in US baby names, 2025
- Joseph #29 in US baby names, 2025
- David #35 in US baby names, 2025
Top 10 New Testament names
- James #6 in US baby names, 2025
- Elizabeth #17 in US baby names, 2025
- Chloe #23 in US baby names, 2025
- John #23 in US baby names, 2025
- Matthew #32 in US baby names, 2025
- Luke #33 in US baby names, 2025
- Thomas #34 in US baby names, 2025
- Gabriel #37 in US baby names, 2025
- Silas #71 in US baby names, 2025
- Andrew #73 in US baby names, 2025
Names with the deepest Christian heritage
The names below all carry significant Christian provenance but sit well outside the modern American Top 200. They are here because depth of heritage is not the same as breadth of current use, and a reference page about popular Christian names that did not also surface the names with the longest substantive Christian lineage would be incomplete by editorial standards, even if it ranked perfectly by SSA data. The six in-catalog cards link to full name guides. The two cards without links (Mercy and Felicity) are names with strong Christian-heritage cases the catalog has not yet built. They appear here so the heritage frame is complete; the underlying name pages are in the editorial queue.
The editorial anchor in this section is the Augustine and Benedict pairing. Augustine of Hippo (354 to 430) and Benedict of Nursia (480 to 547) shaped the two great tributaries of Western Christian life: Augustine the intellectual and theological tradition that runs through Aquinas and the Reformation reformers and on, Benedict the monastic and contemplative tradition whose Rule structured European religious life for fifteen centuries. The two names rarely sit together in modern American naming, which means the rare child who carries either of them carries something the chart numbers cannot show. Both names are formally rising through 2025 (Augustine at #545, Benedict at #814), which suggests the slow cultural recovery of these heritage anchors is genuinely underway.
The biblical-rare picks tell a different angle of the same story. Magdalene, Barnabas, and Tabitha each name a New Testament figure who matters substantively to the gospel and apostolic narratives: Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the Resurrection, Barnabas as the apostle whose sponsorship of Paul shaped early missions, Tabitha as the Joppa disciple Peter raises in Acts 9. Yet their modern American naming use sits outside the SSA Top 1000. Clare, founder of the Poor Clares and contemporary of Francis of Assisi, occupies the borderline at #924 in 2025. Each name in this group carries direct apostolic-era or early-medieval Christian provenance. The fact that they aren't widely chosen says more about contemporary American Christian naming patterns than about the figures themselves.
Mercy and Felicity belong here for different reasons. Mercy is one of the great English Puritan virtue names, alongside Hope, Faith, Patience, Prudence, Charity, and Constance: names that carried the Reformation-era theological vocabulary into the personal-naming tradition that shaped early American Protestant culture. Felicity carries the early Christian martyr tradition through the second-century North African church; she was companion to Perpetua in the Roman martyrdom recorded in The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, and the feast day of the two together (March 7) is one of the oldest commemorations in the Western liturgical calendar.
Magdalene
Magdalene means connected with Magdala, a place name from the region of Galilee.
#1345 in US baby names, 2025, peak #432 in 1904
Augustine
Augustine is a Latin-rooted name meaning great, venerable, or majestic.
#545 in US baby names, 2025, peak #474 in 1906
Clare
Clare is a Latin-rooted name meaning clear, bright, or famous.
#924 in US baby names, 2025, peak #320 in 1884
Benedict
Benedict is a Latin name meaning blessed or well spoken.
#814 in US baby names, 2025, peak #447 in 1914
Barnabas
Barnabas is a New Testament name traditionally explained as son of encouragement.
#3669 in US baby names, 2025, peak #2882 in 1969
Tabitha
Tabitha is an Aramaic name meaning gazelle.
#1308 in US baby names, 2025, peak #126 in 1978
Mercy
Puritan-tradition virtue name, foundational to Protestant English Christian naming culture.
Not yet in the catalog
Felicity
Early Christian martyr (2nd century, companion of Perpetua); long Catholic-tradition saint name.
Not yet in the catalog
Common questions about popular Christian names
What is the most popular Christian boy name in 2025?
- Noah is the highest-ranked biblical or Christian-heritage boy name in the 2025 SSA US baby names data, sitting at #2 overall behind Liam (which is outside the catalog's biblical and Christian-heritage scope). Noah has held the #1 or #2 position every year from 2013 through 2025, a 13-year run unmatched by any other biblical boy name in the SSA dataset's recent history.
What is the most popular Christian girl name in 2025?
- Elizabeth is the highest-ranked biblical girl name in the 2025 SSA US baby names data, at #17 overall. The name has held a US Top 30 position every year of the modern SSA dataset, with a peak of #3 in 1887. Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist in Luke 1 and the figure who recognizes Mary's pregnancy at the Visitation.
Are biblical names becoming more popular?
- Several Hebrew Bible boy names are formally rising through the 2025 SSA data, including Levi (#12), Ezra (#20), Asher (#28), Ezekiel (#61), and Silas (#71). Among girls, Naomi (#47) is the single formally-rising biblical name in the same five-year window. The pattern reflects a Hebrew Bible boy-name revival under way in modern American naming, drawn largely from Genesis patriarchs and Old Testament prophets.
What are the most popular Old Testament names?
- In 2025, Noah leads the Old Testament boy names at #2 overall. The Top 10 Old Testament names span Genesis patriarchs (Noah, Benjamin, Levi, Joseph), prophets (Elijah, Daniel), and figures from the early monarchy (Samuel, David, Asher, Ezra). Four of the Top 10 are formally rising through 2025: Levi, Ezra, Asher, and Ezekiel (which sits just outside at #61).
What are the most popular New Testament names?
- James leads the New Testament names at #6 in the 2025 SSA data, followed by Elizabeth at #17 among girls and a strong cluster of apostolic and Gospel names: John, Matthew, Luke, Thomas, Andrew. Most New Testament names are holding mid-range mainstream positions rather than rising. The two New Testament names at all-time SSA peaks in 2025 are Silas (#71) and Phoebe (#157).
Are Old Testament names more popular than New Testament names in 2025?
- The Old Testament has more momentum in 2025: four names in the Old Testament Top 10 are formally rising (Levi, Ezra, Asher, Ezekiel), while the New Testament Top 10 has none. New Testament names tend to sit at higher absolute positions (James at #6, John at #23, Matthew at #32) but show stability rather than growth. The Old Testament momentum is concentrated in boy names; the New Testament cluster spans both genders.
What Christian baby names are rising in 2026?
- The May 2026 SSA release covers 2025 births and surfaces nine biblical and Christian-heritage names with formal rising trends through 2025: Levi (#12), Ezra (#20), Asher (#28), Naomi (#47), Ezekiel (#61), Silas (#71), Lucia (#83), Esther (#119), and Phoebe (#157). The next release in May 2027 will cover 2026 births and confirm whether these trajectories hold.
How are these rankings calculated?
- Rankings use the 2025 SSA national rank for each biblical or Christian-heritage name in this site's 90-name catalog. The SSA publishes annual baby name counts each May for the prior calendar year. The position shown is each name's place across the full US baby names dataset, not within the catalog or a curated subset. Names whose own page disclaims Christian status (currently only Emma) are excluded.
Are saints' names still popular as Christian names?
- Saint-namesake names like Augustine, Benedict, and Lucia are quietly rising through 2025 in the SSA data. Augustine sits at #545, Benedict at #814, Lucia at #83 (which hit her all-time SSA peak in 2025). The pattern suggests a slow cultural recovery of these heritage anchors. Other major Catholic-tradition saint names like Clare (#924) hold steady positions outside the modern Top 500.
About these rankings
This page draws on the United States Social Security Administration's national baby name records, which the SSA publishes annually each May covering the prior calendar year's births. The May 2026 release that supplies the 2025 ranks on this page reflects every name given to at least five American babies of each sex in 2025, ranked by total count.
The scope is the full SSA dataset, not a curated subset. When the page says "ranked #2 in US baby names in 2025," the rank is the name's position across all male births recorded that year. Names whose own catalog page disclaims Christian origin or substantive Christian heritage are excluded from the rankings; currently Emma is the only such exclusion.
Every claim on this page is anchored to a specific data year. Phrases like "currently #2" do not appear; the page instead says "#2 in 2025" or "#2 from 2013 through 2016." This discipline matters because rank positions move every May. A year-anchored claim stays accurate after new data lands; a tense-anchored claim becomes wrong the moment the next release publishes.
The 90-name catalog covers biblical, virtue, saint-namesake, and Christian-heritage names. The methodology page covers how the catalog is built and maintained. The underlying SSA baby names dataset is publicly available and updates annually.