The first name Jonah has its origin in the Hebrew word for ‘dove’: ‘yōnā’.
Jonah is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The name Jonah isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all boys names, Jonah ranks 139. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 16 were named Jonah. In the entire USA, approximately 73,174 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Jonah. That is 0.02 % of all living Americans.
The first name Jonah has its origin in the Hebrew word for ‘dove’: ‘yōnā’.
Doves are used in many settings ... as symbols of peace, freedom, or love. They appear in the symbolism of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and paganism.
The name Jonah may not be in the top rankings of the most popular boys’ names, but it is one of the few male given names, along with only 385 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Jonah is apparently especially popular in Hawaii. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular men’s names here either, one in 541 men in Hawaii is called Jonah. In total, that’s 1,004 people who feel addressed when the name Jonah is shouted loudly across Hawaii and who ensure that their name makes it to #137 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common male names in this nice state. If you asked all people in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Jonah as the answer a total of 73,174 times. This places Jonah at #348 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular male names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living people across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Jonah as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter J is the most popular first letter for boys’ names. 10.1% of all common boys’ names in the US start with this letter. The second most common first letter in boys’ names is A.
With five letters, the name Jonah is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 10.1% of all boys’ names start with a J, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And, by the way, of all the boys’ names that begin with the letter J, the name James is the most common.
If your name is Jonah and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Jonah, you can simply say:
Joker
Orange
Nut
Apple
Hat
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Jonah
Jonah
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
J
O
N
A
H
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
J
O
N
A
H
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Jonah sounds like this:
