Asa: Meaning of Baby Name Asa

About the Name Asa

Asa descends from the Hebrew Asá meaning "healer" or "physician." The biblical Asa was the third king of Judah (911–870 BCE), described in 1 Kings 15:11 as one who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord." Asa abolished idolatry in Judah and led a famous victory over the Ethiopian invader Zerah.

Notable bearers include American journalist Asa Earl Carter (1925–1979, the iconic American writer who, under the pseudonym Forrest Carter, wrote The Education of Little Tree 1976 — though his racist past was later revealed); American basketball player Asa Newell; the iconic American politician Asa Hutchinson (born 1950, the American politician and former Governor of Arkansas 2015–2023); and the contemporary American actor Asa Butterfield (born 1997, the British actor of Hugo 2011 and Netflix's Sex Education 2019–2023).

Asa's American climb is part of the broader 21st-century return to short Old Testament boys' names alongside Eli, Levi, Ezra, and Asher. The name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Christian-American and African-American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the layered Hebrew-Old Testament-royal-religious pedigree, the in-built distinctive healer/physician etymological register, and the compact two-syllable structure with the distinctive A-S-A palindromic vowel-rich rhythm. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to Hebrew-derived naming. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Asy and Ace (alternate, a popular standalone name) each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Asa and Asah have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Asa (essentially identical across Hebrew/English/Spanish/Italian) and the original Hebrew Asá.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Asa

1,531

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

695

Hebrew male names

45

3-letter A-names in our dictionary

1,087

A-male names total

2000–2025

years of US SSA records (26 total)

12,361

total US births named Asa (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2025)

📈 Rising: Asa climbed 23 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#506 in 2020 → #483 in 2025).

Annual US births named Asa by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 683 boys named Asa (boy rank #450 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #483 for boys (622 US births). That's 33 places below its 2022 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.

Where in the US Is Asa 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 Asa the strongest states are District of Columbia, Maine, West Virginia.

Strongest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	District of Columbia	#172	27
2	Maine	#185	43
3	West Virginia	#302	37
4	Oregon	#307	131
5	Georgia	#312	335
6	New Mexico	#337	18
7	Tennessee	#340	221
8	Alabama	#356	142
9	North Carolina	#359	272
10	Kentucky	#364	118

Weakest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	New Jersey	#871	47
2	Arizona	#719	54
3	California	#674	370
4	Florida	#672	198
5	New York	#669	197
6	Wisconsin	#618	58
7	Texas	#611	416
8	Illinois	#582	135
9	Utah	#575	55
10	Maryland	#568	78

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Asa in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Looking for names like Asa?

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.

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Compare Asa to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Asa against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Asa vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Asa vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Asa vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Asa vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Asa vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Asa vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Asa vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Asa vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

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