Japhet
Japhet was given to 11 boys in 2025, #7,378 among boys’ names; 281 Americans have been recorded with it since 1979 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Japhet by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Japhet?
#7,378 among boys’ names, 2025
Japhet fell from #5,609 in 2015 to #7,378 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 8.3 to 6.4 per million.
16 babies in 2015, the peak
Japhet peaked in 2015, when 16 boys were given it, #5,609 among boys’ names. The 11 births of 2025 are 69% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 11 | #7,378 | 6.4 |
| 2024 | 5 | #13,094 | 2.9 |
| 2023 | 10 | #7,950 | 5.8 |
| 2022 | 7 | #10,249 | 4.0 |
| 2021 | 10 | #7,823 | 5.7 |
| 2020 | 6 | #11,182 | 3.5 |
| 2019 | 10 | #7,883 | 5.6 |
| 2018 | 6 | #11,361 | 3.3 |
| 2017 | 8 | #9,203 | 4.3 |
| 2016 | 11 | #7,341 | 5.8 |
Every recorded year (33)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 16 | #5,609 | 8.3 |
| 2014 | 9 | #8,418 | 4.7 |
| 2013 | 12 | #6,773 | 6.3 |
| 2012 | 8 | #9,215 | 4.2 |
| 2011 | 5 | #13,132 | 2.6 |
| 2010 | 6 | #11,325 | 3.1 |
| 2009 | 13 | #6,585 | 6.6 |
| 2008 | 12 | #6,928 | 5.9 |
| 2007 | 12 | #6,816 | 5.8 |
| 2006 | 11 | #7,130 | 5.4 |
| 2005 | 11 | #6,829 | 5.5 |
| 2004 | 6 | #10,527 | 3.0 |
| 2003 | 9 | #7,501 | 4.6 |
| 2002 | 10 | #6,734 | 5.2 |
| 2001 | 6 | #9,787 | 3.1 |
| 2000 | 11 | #6,075 | 5.6 |
| 1999 | 5 | #10,606 | 2.6 |
| 1997 | 6 | #8,611 | 3.2 |
| 1990 | 5 | #8,681 | 2.4 |
| 1989 | 7 | #6,510 | 3.5 |
| 1988 | 5 | #7,774 | 2.6 |
| 1981 | 6 | #5,809 | 3.3 |
| 1979 | 6 | #5,658 | 3.5 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Japhet a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Japhet has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 33 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Japhet: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Japhet, and how old are they?
An estimated 276 Americans named Japhet and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 16 years old and half are between 9 and 23. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 508 people named Japhet (8 women and girls, 500 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 230 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2.2 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).
How common is the spelling Japhet?
Japhet is a less common spelling of Jafet: SSA has recorded 281 Japhet and 1,442 Jafet since 1880.
Of these 2 names spelled alike, given to 1,723 babies since 1880, Japhet is the second most given (16% of them). In 2025 it was given to 11 of their 57 babies (19%), 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 Japhet
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 Japhet and names like it
- Compare Japhet and JafetBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sJaphet peaked in 2015.
- New York’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Japhet since 1910.
- The top names of 2015The year the most babies were named Japhet.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Japhet alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with JMost given first.