Issam
Issam was given to 6 boys in 2025, #11,186 among boys’ names; 214 Americans have been recorded with it since 1975 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Issam by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Issam?
#11,186 among boys’ names, 2025
Issam fell from #6,824 in 2015 to #11,186 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 6.3 to 3.5 per million.
13 babies in 2021, the peak
Issam peaked in 2021, when 13 boys were given it, #6,466 among boys’ names. The 6 births of 2025 are 46% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 6 | #11,186 | 3.5 |
| 2024 | 5 | #13,032 | 2.9 |
| 2023 | 5 | #12,965 | 2.9 |
| 2022 | 9 | #8,573 | 5.2 |
| 2021 | 13 | #6,466 | 7.4 |
| 2020 | 6 | #11,133 | 3.5 |
| 2019 | 11 | #7,343 | 6.1 |
| 2018 | 8 | #9,127 | 4.4 |
| 2017 | 8 | #9,168 | 4.3 |
| 2016 | 5 | #12,969 | 2.6 |
Every recorded year (30)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 12 | #6,824 | 6.3 |
| 2014 | 8 | #9,100 | 4.2 |
| 2012 | 10 | #7,758 | 5.3 |
| 2011 | 6 | #11,382 | 3.2 |
| 2010 | 6 | #11,267 | 3.1 |
| 2009 | 10 | #7,923 | 5.0 |
| 2006 | 5 | #12,764 | 2.4 |
| 2004 | 8 | #8,428 | 4.0 |
| 2001 | 5 | #11,237 | 2.6 |
| 1999 | 8 | #7,427 | 4.2 |
| 1998 | 7 | #7,896 | 3.7 |
| 1997 | 6 | #8,574 | 3.2 |
| 1996 | 6 | #8,325 | 3.2 |
| 1993 | 6 | #8,027 | 3.1 |
| 1992 | 5 | #8,948 | 2.5 |
| 1989 | 6 | #7,348 | 3.0 |
| 1987 | 5 | #7,413 | 2.7 |
| 1982 | 6 | #5,941 | 3.3 |
| 1977 | 6 | #5,411 | 3.7 |
| 1975 | 7 | #4,520 | 4.5 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Issam a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Issam has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 30 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Issam: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Issam, and how old are they?
An estimated 209 Americans named Issam and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 14 years old and half are between 7 and 28. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 1,221 people named Issam (6 women and girls, 1,215 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 168 born in the U.S. The Census count is 7.3 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
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).
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 2,296 babies since 1880, Issam is the third most given (9.3% of them). In 2025 it was given to 6 of their 21 babies (29%), again the third 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 Issam
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 Issam and names like it
- Compare Issam and IsomBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sIssam peaked in 2021.
- The top names of 2021The year the most babies were named Issam.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Issam alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with IMost given first.