Nathanael
Nathanael is a boy's name that peaked in 2000, when it was the 408th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 632nd. About 21,000 Nathanaels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 23.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nathanael boys named Nathanael
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 22,244
- Estimated living today
- 21,000
- Median age today
- 23
- Peak year
- 2000
- Best rank
- 408th
- Rank in 2025
- 632nd
- First recorded
- 1915
- Girls / boys
- 17 / 22,227
How old the living Nathanaels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 22,244 babies given the name since 1915, about 21,000 are alive — 96 in every hundred. Roughly 7,600 of them are children and 100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 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 Ancient Greek Ναθαναήλ, from Biblical Hebrew נְתַנְאֵל.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Nathanaels
- Nathanael West (1903–1940)American writer and screenwriter
- Nathanael Greene (1742–1786)American general in the American Revolutionary War
- Nathanaël Mbuku (born 2002)Congolese international footballer who plays as a striker for Dinamo Zagreb
- Nathanael Pringsheim (1823–1894)German botanist
- Nathanael Matthaeus von Wolf (1724–1784)astronomer and botanist
- Nathanaël Berthon (born 1989)racing driver
- Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn (1711–1756)German physician
People named Nathanael with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nathanael is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nathanael is most concentrated in Oregon (2.1×), Washington (2.0×), Arizona (1.9×), Florida (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2000
The most popular boys’ names the year Nathanael peaked:
Nathanael elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Nathanael +1 spelling | 16,535 | 125th |
| England and Wales boys | Nathanael | 1,481 | 500th |
| Belgium boys | Nathanaël +1 spelling | 1,041 | 250th |
| Switzerland boys | Nathanael +1 spelling | 603 | 303rd |
| France girls | Nathanael +1 spelling | 65 | 4,394th |
| Scotland boys | Nathanael | 51 | 383rd |
| Ireland boys | Nathanael | 33 | 548th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Nathanael | 18 | 277th |
| Poland boys | Nathanael | 9 birth registrations | 588th |
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.
Nathanael: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Nathanael | 322 | 0.026% | 247th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Nathanaël | 29 | 0.002% | 932nd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nathanaël | 182 | 0.042% | 175th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nathanael | 66 | 0.015% | 291st |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nathanaël | 1 | 0.002% | 180th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nathanael | 1 | 0.002% | 182nd |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Nathanael | 2 | 0.054% | 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, Nathanael is most concentrated in Fribourg, where 0.06% of children were given it – 41 of them.
Nathanael: rank by region
In 2025, Nathanael was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nathanaël | 714 | 7 |
| Wallonia | Nathanaël | 157 | 18 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nathanael appears in the lists for Province of Hainaut (98th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Nathanael by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 25 | 354th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nathanael 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Nathanael | 31 | 84 |
A count of people on a register – 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 Nathanael lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 217 men called Nathanael 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Navarra | Nathanael | 7 | 0.021 | 2,287 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Nathanael | 5 | 0.016 | 2,876 |
| Almería | Nathanael | 6 | 0.015 | 2,970 |
| Valencia/València | Nathanael | 18 | 0.013 | 3,225 |
| Málaga | Nathanael | 11 | 0.013 | 3,271 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Nathanael | 12 | 0.012 | 4,037 |
Listed in 11 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 41 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
Nathanael 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.