Jonah
- Pronunciation
- [Jo-nah]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Dove. In The Bible Jonah Was On Board A Ship God Caused To Sink: Sailors Traditionally Use The Name Jonah To Personify Someone Who Brings Bad Luck.
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Jonah
Jonah descends from the Hebrew Yonah, meaning "dove." The biblical Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets and the central figure of the Book of Jonah — a short narrative in which Jonah, called by God to prophesy to the city of Nineveh, attempts to flee the assignment by sailing west, is thrown overboard during a storm, swallowed by a great fish (traditionally a whale, though the Hebrew text uses a less specific word for "large fish"), and after three days in the fish's belly is vomited onto dry land — eventually completing his prophetic mission to Nineveh.
The Jonah narrative is one of the most-known stories of the Hebrew Bible and carries significant theological weight in Christian and Islamic traditions as well (where Jonah is recognized as the prophet Yunus). The narrative is famously cited by Jesus in the Gospels as a typological prefiguration of the resurrection (Matthew 12:40 — "as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth").
Jonah was rare in pre-modern English-language naming despite the biblical anchor, becoming common only through Puritan-era Old Testament revival. The contemporary American Jonah surge is part of the broader Old Testament revival alongside Elijah and Isaiah. The name climbed from outside the US top 200 in 1990 to the top 100 boys' rank by 2010 and has held that range since. Notable bearers include American actor Jonah Hill (born Jonah Hill Feldstein, 1983), Welsh footballer Jonah Lomu (rugby legend), and contemporary musician Jonah Smith. The name's appeal is its compact biblical depth — two soft syllables, the in-built dove-imagery (a peace and Holy-Spirit symbol in Christian tradition), and the dramatic Jonah-and-the-whale narrative. Common nicknames Jo, Joey, and the rare Jay each carry distinct registers; international forms include Yonah (Hebrew), Jona (Italian/German), Jonás (Spanish/Portuguese), and Yunus (Arabic/Turkish).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Jonah
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Jonah by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2008 with 2,981 boys named Jonah (boy rank #136 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #128 for boys (2,828 US births). That's 8 places above its earlier 2008 peak — the name is more popular now than it has ever been.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Jonah Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Jonah the strongest states are Kentucky, Vermont, District of Columbia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kentucky | #103 | 477 |
| 2 | Vermont | #109 | 35 |
| 3 | District of Columbia | #111 | 88 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #121 | 163 |
| 5 | Maine | #121 | 106 |
| 6 | New York | #122 | 1,490 |
| 7 | Hawaii | #123 | 100 |
| 8 | Michigan | #127 | 804 |
| 9 | West Virginia | #129 | 158 |
| 10 | Ohio | #129 | 1,012 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nevada | #205 | 156 |
| 2 | Delaware | #185 | 50 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | #178 | 76 |
| 4 | Montana | #176 | 38 |
| 5 | Nebraska | #176 | 149 |
| 6 | Arizona | #174 | 453 |
| 7 | Iowa | #171 | 223 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #169 | 284 |
| 9 | Colorado | #168 | 384 |
| 10 | New Jersey | #162 | 554 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Jonah in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonas | Dove. Variant Of Hebrew Jonah. | Male | Spanish |
Looking for names like Jonah?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Jonah to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Jonah against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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