Simon
- Pronunciation
- [Si-mon]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Obedient
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Simon
Simon descends from the Hebrew Shim'on, traditionally derived from shama (to hear) — yielding "the one who hears" or "hearkening to God." The name's overwhelming biblical anchor is Simon Peter, the apostle whom Jesus renamed Cephas/Peter ("rock") — see separate entry on Peter. The original Simon was the apostle's birth name before his identity transformation.
Several Old Testament Simons (most notably Simeon, the second son of Jacob and Leah) and multiple New Testament Simons (Simon the Zealot, Simon of Cyrene, Simon Magus) give the name a rich biblical register. The name has been continuously used across European Christian-influenced naming traditions for over two thousand years.
Notable bearers include American songwriter Paul Simon (using Simon as a surname; American singer-songwriter, half of Simon and Garfunkel and major solo career); British author Simon Singh; American astronaut Simon "Simo" Maraniss; and contemporary British actor Simon Pegg. Simon held a US top-200 boys' rank from 1900 through 1980 and has held a top-300 range since. The contemporary American Simon currently sits in the US top 250 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its compact biblical-classical pedigree combined with two short syllables — the in-built religious anchor from the apostle Peter's original name, instantly readable across most European languages, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. Common nicknames Si (the dominant short form) and the rare Sim each carry distinct registers; international forms include Simón (Spanish, with accent), Simone (Italian masculine, despite the Italian feminine-looking spelling), Siméon (French), Shimon (Hebrew/Israeli), and the original Hebrew Shim'on.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Simon
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Simon by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 1,645 boys named Simon (boy rank #235 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #230 for boys (1,529 US births). That's 5 places above its earlier 2015 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 Simon 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 Simon the strongest states are District of Columbia, Vermont, Minnesota.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #90 | 122 |
| 2 | Vermont | #108 | 24 |
| 3 | Minnesota | #144 | 435 |
| 4 | Alaska | #150 | 23 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #152 | 398 |
| 6 | North Dakota | #158 | 47 |
| 7 | Washington | #164 | 476 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #165 | 384 |
| 9 | New Hampshire | #168 | 78 |
| 10 | South Dakota | #169 | 70 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #547 | 29 |
| 2 | Arkansas | #441 | 70 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #441 | 116 |
| 4 | Nevada | #403 | 60 |
| 5 | Alabama | #401 | 119 |
| 6 | Texas | #387 | 819 |
| 7 | Oklahoma | #385 | 118 |
| 8 | South Carolina | #376 | 123 |
| 9 | Arizona | #362 | 198 |
| 10 | New Mexico | #356 | 38 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Simon in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Simon
4 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Simon.
- Simon Bolivar — War Hero (1783)
- Simon Cowell — Entrepreneur (1959)
- Simon Kuznets is a Russian American economist noted for his empirical works on national income.
- Simon Wiesenthal was an Austrian writer and a famous Nazi hunter.
Looking for names like Simon?
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 Simon to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Simon 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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