Zephaniah
given name · Latin script
Meaning: As a historical figure, Zephaniah the priest represents the established religious leadership in Jerusalem during its final days
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/zephaniɑh/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zephaniah is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 141K(measured from records)
- NLNetherlands1 in 691K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 19 (measured from records)
- 1 in 141K (inferred from the name graph)
2,359 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
As a historical figure, Zephaniah the priest represents the established religious leadership in Jerusalem during its final days. His interactions with Jeremiah highlight the conflict between the royal court's desires and the prophet's divine warnings, placing him at the center of the political and spiritual crisis preceding the Babylonian exile.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zephaniah 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,359 | 1 in 141K | 2.1K | Zephaniah | 6 |
| NL Netherlands | 25 | 1 in 691K | 13 | — | — |
| FR France | — | — | — | Zephaniah | 19 |
| GY Guyana | — | — | 19 | — | — |
| NZ New Zealand | — | — | 10 | — | — |
2,359 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Zephaniah is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The name Zephaniah carries a sense of divine protection, meaning "Yahweh has hidden." It is a strong, classic biblical name associated with both a courageous prophet who spoke of judgment and hope, and a high-ranking priest during a critical time in Israel's history.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A distinctive biblical name of Hebrew origin, Zephaniah carries the powerful meaning "the Lord has hidden" or "treasured by God," suggesting divine protection. It is associated with an Old Testament prophet who spoke of justice and ultimate hope.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Zephaniah is a strong, biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has hidden." It evokes a sense of divine protection and is associated with a prophetic heritage in the Old Testament.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Zephaniah comes from the Hebrew Tsefanya (צְפַנְיָה) and means "Yahweh has hidden" or "Yahweh has protected".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Zephaniah is of Hebrew origin (Tsefanyah) and means "Yahweh has hidden" or "Yahweh has treasured".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)
- Zephaniah Plattb. 1735USAmerican politician (1735–1807)
- Zephaniah Swiftb. 1759USAmerican politician (1759-1823)
- Zephaniah Kingsleyb. 1765USplantation owner, slave trader, merchant
- Charles Z. Plattb. 1773USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (1773-1822)
- John Zephaniah Bellb. 1794GBBritish artist (1794–1883)
- Zephaniah Williamsb. 1795GBWelsh political activist
- Zephaniah Plattb. 1796USAmerican lawyer and judge (1796-1871)
- Z. Alexander Loobyb. 1899USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician
- Zephaniah Drorib. 1937ILIsraeli rabbi
- Zephaniah Thomasb. 1989GBBritish footballer (born 1989)
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.1K | #6,719 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 277 | #6,719 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2019 | 171 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2018 | 152 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 144 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2016 | 144 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2017 | 138 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2021 | 132 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2013 | 129 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 125 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2020 | 125 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 123 | — |
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
- What does the name Zephaniah mean, and where does it come from?
- As a historical figure, Zephaniah the priest represents the established religious leadership in Jerusalem during its final days. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is Zephaniah a male or female name?
- Zephaniah 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 are other forms of the name Zephaniah?
- In the etymology graph, Zephania, Sofonias and Sophonias are forms of the same name in other languages; Zeph is a recorded short or pet form.
- How common is the name Zephaniah?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,359 people named Zephaniah in 2020, about 1 in 141 thousand residents.
- How do you pronounce Zephaniah?
- A machine transcription gives /zephaniɑh/ (IPA) for Swahili.
- In which country does Zephaniah have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.4 thousand people named Zephaniah, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zephaniah.
- Where is Zephaniah most common?
- Zephaniah is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 141 thousand people carrying it.
What do you want to know about Zephaniah?
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/zephaniahThe 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, “Zephaniah”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.