Meaning and history
Jeremiah comes from the Hebrew name יִרְמְיָהוּ (Yirmeyahu), meaning “Yahweh will exalt,” from the roots רוּם (rum), “to exalt,” and יָהּ (yah), referring to the Hebrew God. It is the name of one of the major prophets of the Old Testament, traditionally credited as the author of the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations, and said to have lived through the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC. In England, the vernacular form Jeremy had been used occasionally since the 13th century, but Jeremiah did not become common until after the Protestant Reformation.
20062006: 6,544 births, rank #71
2007: 6,630 births, rank #67
2008: 6,594 births, rank #68
2009: 7,235 births, rank #65
2010: 7,743 births, rank #51
20112011: 7,630 births, rank #49
2012: 7,498 births, rank #52
2013: 6,993 births, rank #58
2014: 6,899 births, rank #56
2015: 6,827 births, rank #54
20162016: 6,629 births, rank #58
2017: 5,887 births, rank #63
2018: 5,632 births, rank #64
2019: 5,080 births, rank #69
2020: 4,602 births, rank #74
20212021: 4,257 births, rank #82
2022: 3,886 births, rank #93
2023: 3,771 births, rank #92
2024: 3,735 births, rank #93
20252025: 3,840 births, rank #88
Jeremiah has unusual staying power. It appears in the US records as early as 1880 and still ranks #88 for boys in 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 2010, with 7,743 births.