Nathaniel
Nathaniel reached its high-water mark in 2002 at number 62, and has been recorded 288,265 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 140th. About 249,000 Nathaniels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 26.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nathaniel boys named Nathaniel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 288,265
- Estimated living today
- 249,000
- Median age today
- 26
- Peak year
- 2002
- Best rank
- 62nd
- Rank in 2025
- 140th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,162 / 287,103
How old the living Nathaniels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 288,265 babies given the name since 1880, about 249,000 are alive — 86 in every hundred. Roughly 69,000 of them are children and 15,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1999 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
Modification, under influence of Daniel, of Nathanael, from Ancient Greek Ναθαναήλ, from Biblical Hebrew נְתַנְאֵל.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Nathaniels
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)American author
- Nathaniel Clyne (born 1991)English association football player
- Nathaniel Chalobah (born 1994)English footballer
- Nathaniel Brown (born 2003)German association football player
- Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934)American botanist and geologist
- Nathaniel Wolff Wallich (1786–1854)surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India
- Nathaniel Palmer (1799–1877)American explorer
- Nathaniel Parker (born 1962)English actor
People named Nathaniel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nathaniel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nathaniel is most concentrated in South Carolina (1.9×), Alaska (1.9×), the District of Columbia (1.7×), Arizona (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2002
The most popular boys’ names the year Nathaniel peaked:
Nathaniel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Nathaniel | 12,512 | 118th |
| France boys | Nathaniel +1 spelling | 2,040 | 658th |
| Norway boys | Nathaniel | 1,029 | 107th |
| Poland boys | Nathaniel | 717 birth registrations | 149th |
| Scotland boys | Nathaniel | 566 | 186th |
| Ireland boys | Nathaniel | 399 | 241st |
| New Zealand boys | Nathaniel | 329 | 79th |
| Italy boys | Nathaniel | 269 | — |
| Belgium boys | Nathaniel +1 spelling | 224 | 659th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Nathaniel | 200 | 197th |
| Switzerland boys | Nathaniel | 185 | 545th |
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.
Nathaniel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Nathaniel | 105 | 0.008% | 552nd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nathaniel | 71 | 0.016% | 284th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nathaniel | 8 | 0.012% | 123rd |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Nathaniel | 1 | 0.027% | 19th |
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, Nathaniel is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.03% of children were given it – 28 of them.
Nathaniel: rank by region
In 2025, Nathaniel was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nathaniel | 498 | 11 |
In 2025, Nathaniel was given 2 times or more in 6 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Nathaniel | 209 | 3 |
| Łódzkie | Nathaniel | 183 | 2 |
| Podkarpackie | Nathaniel | 135 | 3 |
| Śląskie | Nathaniel | 186 | 4 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Nathaniel | 103 | 4 |
| Wielkopolskie | Nathaniel | 248 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nathaniel appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (341st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Nathaniel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 24 | 371st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nathaniel 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 | Nathaniel | 66 | 192 |
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 Nathaniel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 298 men called Nathaniel 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Nathaniel | 20 | 0.034 | 2,144 |
| Zaragoza | Nathaniel | 9 | 0.018 | 2,475 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Nathaniel | 18 | 0.018 | 2,928 |
| Madrid | Nathaniel | 59 | 0.017 | 2,591 |
| Granada | Nathaniel | 8 | 0.017 | 2,095 |
| Balears, Illes | Nathaniel | 10 | 0.016 | 3,165 |
Listed in 16 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 36 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
Nathaniel 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.