Nathan
About 589,271 American babies have been named Nathan since 1880, most of them around 2004. In 2025 it ranked 63rd. About 540,000 Nathans are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 27.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nathan boys named Nathan
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 589,271
- Estimated living today
- 540,000
- Median age today
- 27
- Peak year
- 2004
- Best rank
- 20th
- Rank in 2025
- 63rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,774 / 587,497
How old the living Nathans are
born that year still alive today
Of the 589,271 babies given the name since 1880, about 540,000 are alive — 92 in every hundred. Roughly 144,000 of them are children and 11,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1998 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Hebrew נָתָן (“gave”). Also short for Jonathan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Nathans
- Nathan Fillion (born 1971)Canadian-American actor
- Nathan Söderblom (1866–1931)Swedish clergyman and archbishop
- Nathan Aké (born 1995)Dutch footballer
- Nathan Lane (born 1956)American actor
- Nathan Burns (born 1988)Australian association football player
- Nathan Kress (born 1992)American actor
- Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877)Confederate States Army general
- Nathan Delfouneso (born 1991)English association football player
People named Nathan with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nathan is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nathan is most concentrated in Utah (2.1×), Alaska (1.8×), New Hampshire (1.7×), Nevada (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2004
The most popular boys’ names the year Nathan peaked:
Nathan elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Nathan | 123,205 | 1st |
| England and Wales boys | Nathan | 47,388 | 25th |
| Belgium boys | Nathan | 13,174 | 2nd |
| Italy boys | Nathan | 11,694 | — |
| New Zealand boys | Nathan | 9,311 | 18th |
| Scotland boys | Nathan | 7,353 | 20th |
| Ireland boys | Nathan | 6,817 | 30th |
| Switzerland boys | Nathan | 3,727 | 26th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Nathan | 2,418 | 20th |
| Poland boys | Nathan | 1,955 birth registrations | 97th |
| Norway boys | Nathan | 340 | 229th |
| France girls | Nathan | 70 | 2,891st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Nathan: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Nathan | 717 | 0.058% | 112th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nathan | 2,582 | 0.593% | 1st |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nathan | 425 | 0.652% | 5th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Nathan | 3 | 0.081% | 18th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Nathan is most concentrated in Jura, where 0.86% of children were given it – 125 of them.
Nathan: rank by region
In 2025, Nathan was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium. It has come first somewhere in 6 different years.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nathan | 89 | 63 |
| Wallonia | Nathan | 35 | 74 |
| Brussels | Nathan | 79 | 13 |
In 2024, Nathan was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Nathan | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Nathan was given 2 times or more in 3 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubuskie | Nathan | 138 | 2 |
| Podkarpackie | Nathan | 158 | 2 |
| Śląskie | Nathan | 254 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nathan appears in the lists for Province of Walloon Brabant (27th), Province of Liège (30th), Province of Namur (32nd), Province of Hainaut (35th), Province of Flemish Brabant (57th), Province of Limburg (60th), Brussels-Capital Region (79th), Province of Antwerp (79th), Province of West Flanders (95th) and Province of East Flanders (170th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Nathan by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 153 | 150th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nathan among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Nathan | 4,153 | 6,429 |
| Finland boys | Nathan | 189 | 283 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Nathan lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,474 men called Nathan were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Nathan | 58 | 0.109 | 841 |
| Guadalajara | Nathan | 15 | 0.103 | 601 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Nathan | 102 | 0.101 | 774 |
| Palmas, Las | Nathan | 58 | 0.100 | 911 |
| Pontevedra | Nathan | 45 | 0.098 | 574 |
| Tarragona | Nathan | 40 | 0.091 | 818 |
Listed in 41 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 11 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Nathan against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.