Jairus
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Jairus is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "he shines" or "God enlightens"
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Jairus is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Kenya than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 51K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 154K
- KEKenya≈1 in 8.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Kenya (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 208 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,500 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Kenya, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Jairus is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "he shines" or "God enlightens." In the New Testament, Jairus was a devoted father and synagogue leader whose unwavering faith in Jesus led to his daughter being miraculously raised from the dead. The name carries connotations of faith, hope, and divine intervention.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jairus counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KE Kenya | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | Jairus | 16 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Jairus | 17 |
| US United States | 2,167 | 1 in 154K | 2.1K | Jairus | 208 |
| PH Philippines | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 51K | — | Jairus | 49 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 132K | — | Jairus | 10 |
| NA Namibia | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 1 | — | 3 |
| GY Guyana | 9 | 1 in 83K | 9 | — | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Jairus is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The name Jairus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Jair (Yāʾîr), which means "he shines," "he enlightens," or "one who gives light."
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, The father of a young girl resurrected by Jesus Christ.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Jal<an [Jaakan]
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Yair Sprinzakb. 1911ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli politician
- Yair Hoffmanb. 1937ILnot in their usual nameIsraelian bible researcher
- Yair Levyb. 1952ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli politician
- Yair Golanb. 1962ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli general, politician and Leader of the Democrats (Party) and last leader of the Labour Party in the year 2024 (defunct in 2024)
- Yair Lapidb. 1963ILnot in their usual nameLeader of the Opposition in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Former Prime Minister of Israel in 2022 and Chairman of the Yesh Atid Party
- Yair Qedarb. 1969ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli filmmaker
- Yair Netanyahub. 1991ILnot in their usual nameson of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
- Yair Rodríguezb. 1992MXnot in their usual nameMexican mixed martial artist and Taekwondo black belt
- Yair Koasb. 1997ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli actor
- Yair Weissb. 2000ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli computational neuroscientist
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 30 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.1K | #7,121 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2015 | 83 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2006 | 77 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1999 | 75 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1998 | 75 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1994 | 74 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2018 | 73 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2010 | 73 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2008 | 71 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 50 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 29 | #7,121 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 9 | #585 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Jairus come from?
- Jairus is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "he shines" or "God enlightens." In the New Testament, Jairus was a devoted father and synagogue leader whose unwavering faith in Jesus led to his da… Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is Jairus a male or female name?
- Jairus is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Jairus mean?
- Recorded meaning: Jairus is a biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "he shines" or "God enlightens."
- What are other forms of the name Jairus?
- In the etymology graph, Jairo, Jair and Yair are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Jairus have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.5 thousand people named Jairus in Kenya, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jairus.
- How common is the name Jairus?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,167 people named Jairus in 2020, about 1 in 154 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Jairus?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/jairusThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Jairus”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.