Jared
- Pronunciation
- [Ja-red]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Descending
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Jared
Jared descends from the Hebrew Yared meaning "descending" or "to descend." The biblical Jared is the father of Enoch and the grandfather of Methuselah (Genesis 5:15–20) — and is recorded as living for 962 years, making him one of the long-lived patriarchs of the antediluvian (pre-Flood) era.
Notable bearers include American actor Jared Leto (born 1971, the Oscar-winning American actor whose career through Dallas Buyers Club, Suicide Squad, and his role as the lead singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars made him one of the foundational late-20th and early-21st-century American screen-and-music figures); American filmmaker Jared Hess (the director of Napoleon Dynamite); and contemporary American technology executive Jared Kushner (born 1981, son-in-law and senior advisor to US President Donald Trump 2017–2021).
Jared held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1976 through 2010 — over three decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1990 at #19 in the United States. The name has receded since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the Old Testament biblical pedigree, the in-built distinctive religious-historical sophistication, and the popular two-syllable -ed ending. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames Jay (the dominant short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own), Jare, Red, and the rare Jed each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Jared, Jarred, and Jarrod have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Yared (Hebrew original), Jaredo (Spanish), and the original Hebrew Yared.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Jared
US Popularity History (1975–2025)
Annual US births named Jared by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1998 with 7,462 boys named Jared (boy rank #51 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #396 for boys (804 US births). That's 345 places below its 1998 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 Jared 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 Jared the strongest states are Rhode Island, Alaska, New Jersey.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhode Island | #183 | 18 |
| 2 | Alaska | #201 | 15 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #245 | 348 |
| 4 | Utah | #275 | 176 |
| 5 | Maryland | #283 | 203 |
| 6 | New York | #306 | 564 |
| 7 | California | #314 | 1,147 |
| 8 | Indiana | #340 | 205 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #343 | 148 |
| 10 | Texas | #344 | 961 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michigan | #639 | 116 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #635 | 72 |
| 3 | Missouri | #625 | 83 |
| 4 | Washington | #523 | 126 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | #523 | 76 |
| 6 | Iowa | #521 | 37 |
| 7 | Wisconsin | #515 | 91 |
| 8 | Oregon | #512 | 43 |
| 9 | Mississippi | #498 | 24 |
| 10 | Tennessee | #496 | 146 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Jared in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaren | Modern Variant Of Israeli Jaron Cry Of Rejoicing. | Male | English |
| Jarid | He Descends. | Male | Hebrew |
| Jarod | Descending | Male | Hebrew |
| Jarrad | Variant Of The French Name Gervaise Spearman. | Male | English |
| Jarred | Variant Of The French Name Gervaise Spearman. | Male | English |
| Jarrett | Spear Strong. Surname. Variant Of Garrett. | Male | English |
| Jarrod | Spear Strong. Variant And Surname Form Of Garrett From Gerald. | Male | English |
| Jerad | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jered | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jerod | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jerrad | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jerred | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jerrod | Variant Of Garrett Rules By The Spear. | Male | English |
| Jordan | Flowing Down | Male | Hebrew |
Famous People Named Jared
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Jared.
- Jared Leto — Movie Actor (1971)
Looking for names like Jared?
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 Jared to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Jared 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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