Canaan
Canaan was given to 212 boys in 2025, #1,044 among boys’ names; 6,167 Americans have been recorded with it since 1973 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 6,070 Americans named Canaan and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 12 years old and half are between 7 and 22.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Canaan by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Canaan mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Canaan is “a male given name from Hebrew of biblical origin.”
Taken (at least as early as Wycliffe’s Bible, 1382-1395, which has Chanaan) from Ecclesiastical Latin Chanaān, from Ancient Greek Χαναάν (Khanaán), expanded from Χνᾶ (Khnâ), from Biblical Hebrew כְּנַעַן (kanáʕan). The first vowel shifted from /aː/ to /eɪ/ in the Great Vowel Shift; at least as early as Milton (1660s), the word could already be pronounced with two syllables, though at least as late as the 1880s it could also be pronounced with three, /ˈkeɪ.nə.æn/.
/ˈkeɪnən/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Canaan?
#1,044 among boys’ names, 2025
Canaan fell from #806 in 2015 to #1,044 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 0.15 to 0.12 per 1,000.
385 babies in 2016, the peak
Canaan peaked in 2016, when 385 boys were given it, #671 among boys’ names. The 218 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 57% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 212 | #1,044 | 0.12 |
| 2024 | 201 | #1,082 | 0.12 |
| 2023 | 190 | #1,112 | 0.11 |
| 2022 | 236 | #960 | 0.14 |
| 2021 | 236 | #954 | 0.13 |
| 2020 | 231 | #950 | 0.13 |
| 2019 | 265 | #846 | 0.15 |
| 2018 | 270 | #828 | 0.15 |
| 2017 | 318 | #745 | 0.17 |
| 2016 | 385 | #671 | 0.20 |
Every recorded year (53)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 285 | #806 | 0.15 |
| 2014 | 180 | #1,074 | 0.09 |
| 2013 | 149 | #1,205 | 0.08 |
| 2012 | 172 | #1,085 | 0.09 |
| 2011 | 159 | #1,137 | 0.08 |
| 2010 | 163 | #1,139 | 0.08 |
| 2009 | 146 | #1,228 | 0.07 |
| 2008 | 150 | #1,182 | 0.07 |
| 2007 | 137 | #1,278 | 0.07 |
| 2006 | 161 | #1,092 | 0.08 |
| 2005 | 126 | #1,252 | 0.06 |
| 2004 | 118 | #1,271 | 0.06 |
| 2003 | 119 | #1,223 | 0.06 |
| 2002 | 99 | #1,330 | 0.05 |
| 2001 | 108 | #1,228 | 0.06 |
| 2000 | 93 | #1,359 | 0.05 |
| 1999 | 79 | #1,456 | 0.04 |
| 1998 | 91 | #1,299 | 0.05 |
| 1997 | 87 | #1,308 | 0.05 |
| 1996 | 75 | #1,399 | 0.04 |
| 1995 | 52 | #1,705 | 0.03 |
| 1994 | 54 | #1,665 | 0.03 |
| 1993 | 58 | #1,553 | 0.03 |
| 1992 | 44 | #1,843 | 0.02 |
| 1991 | 43 | #1,824 | 0.02 |
| 1990 | 52 | #1,585 | 0.03 |
| 1989 | 26 | #2,480 | 0.01 |
| 1988 | 22 | #2,612 | 0.01 |
| 1987 | 27 | #2,170 | 0.01 |
| 1986 | 15 | #3,150 | 0.01 |
| 1985 | 16 | #2,957 | 0.01 |
| 1984 | 25 | #2,105 | 0.01 |
| 1983 | 34 | #1,687 | 0.02 |
| 1982 | 16 | #2,852 | 0.01 |
| 1981 | 21 | #2,351 | 0.01 |
| 1980 | 15 | #2,979 | 0.01 |
| 1979 | 14 | #3,027 | 0.01 |
| 1978 | 10 | #3,637 | 0.01 |
| 1977 | 19 | #2,376 | 0.01 |
| 1976 | 11 | #3,293 | 0.01 |
| 1975 | 10 | #3,466 | 0.01 |
| 1974 | 12 | #2,971 | 0.01 |
| 1973 | 6 | #4,571 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Canaan a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 6,167 Americans recorded as Canaan, 5% are girls and 95% boys. In 2025 it went to 6 girls and 212 boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Canaan: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Canaan, and how old are they?
6,070 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 6,167 Americans ever recorded as Canaan. The median Canaan alive today is 12 years old; half are between 7 and 22.
The 2020 Census counted 4,298 people named Canaan (299 women and girls, 3,999 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 4,828 born in the U.S. The Census count is 11% below that prediction. Possible reasons: people who give a short form or another name to the Census, and a survival estimate that can run high.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 93 |
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 611 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 2,140 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 3,230 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Canaan born?
The states with the most babies named Canaan are North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, with 27% of its births recorded by state in 2025.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, boys | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 19 | #515 | 1.6× |
| Georgia | 14 | #680 | 1.5× |
| Texas | 13 | #1,424 | 0.7× |
| California | 13 | #1,369 | 0.4× |
| Florida | 13 | #1,019 | 0.6× |
| Tennessee | 11 | #643 | 2.5× |
| Virginia | 11 | #638 | 1.0× |
| Kentucky | 10 | #457 | 2.1× |
| Ohio | 9 | #868 | 0.9× |
| Illinois | 8 | #948 | 0.2× |
Where Canaan is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Canaan is most over-represented in Tennessee: since 1973 it was given 2.5 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among boys’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Canaan with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 28,634 babies since 1880, Canaan is the second most given (22% of them). In 2025 it was given to 218 of their 1,068 babies (20%), again the second most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Canaan
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Canaan and names like it
- Compare Canaan and CannonBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sCanaan peaked in 2016.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Canaan since 1910.
- Hebrew namesWiktionary’s origin for Canaan: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2016The year the most babies were named Canaan.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Canaan alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with CMost given first.