Seth
- Pronunciation
- [Seth]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Myth Name (Murdered Osiris)
- Origin
- Egyptian
About the Name Seth
Seth descends from the Hebrew Shet meaning "appointed" or "set in place" — referring metaphorically to the third son of Adam and Eve, who was "appointed" by God after the death of Abel (Genesis 4:25). The biblical Seth is recorded as living for 912 years and is the ancestor of all post-Flood humanity through Noah.
The name has additional Egyptian mythological associations: Set (Egyptian Sutekh) was the Egyptian god of chaos, deserts, and storms, who murdered his brother Osiris. The Egyptian and Hebrew lines have completely separate etymologies despite sharing similar phonetic forms.
Notable bearers include American actor Seth Rogen (born 1982, the iconic Canadian-American comedy actor whose career through Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, and The Interview made him one of the foundational late-2000s and 2010s American comedy figures); American actor Seth MacFarlane (born 1973, the iconic American animator and creator of Fox's Family Guy 1999–present); and American basketball player Seth Curry (brother of Stephen Curry).
Seth held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1985 through 2010 — over two decades of consistent American popularity. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 200 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-Old Testament-Egyptian pedigree combined with one firm syllable — the in-built religious-historical register, the strong Seth Rogen and Seth MacFarlane comedy cultural anchors, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Sethy and Sethers each occasionally appear. International forms include Set (Spanish/Italian), Sète (French), and the original Hebrew Shet.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Seth
US Popularity History (1980–2025)
Annual US births named Seth by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 6,717 boys named Seth (boy rank #63 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #581 for boys (505 US births). That's 518 places below its 2000 peak.
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 Seth 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 Seth the strongest states are Alaska, Utah, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | #181 | 25 |
| 2 | Utah | #276 | 183 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #291 | 44 |
| 4 | Indiana | #298 | 264 |
| 5 | Idaho | #307 | 41 |
| 6 | New Mexico | #332 | 21 |
| 7 | Kentucky | #361 | 121 |
| 8 | Ohio | #369 | 300 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #381 | 262 |
| 10 | Michigan | #386 | 238 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | #580 | 170 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #570 | 90 |
| 3 | Colorado | #567 | 100 |
| 4 | New Jersey | #555 | 131 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #550 | 75 |
| 6 | Arizona | #525 | 141 |
| 7 | Kansas | #508 | 54 |
| 8 | Iowa | #508 | 58 |
| 9 | Washington | #486 | 161 |
| 10 | California | #486 | 668 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Seth in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Seth
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Seth.
- Seth Godin is an American author, entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker who has written 17 bestsellers on topics like, post-industrial revolution, marketing, leadership, etc.
Looking for names like Seth?
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 Seth to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Seth 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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