Zen
#1,141 in the US in 2025
Where Zen stands
#1,141boys’ names · US 2025
Zen was the 1,141st most registered boys' name in the United States in 2025, on 185 births.
Its moment was 2022, when 256 babies were given it. In 18 of the years between, the name fell under the 5-birth floor and the registrar published nothing — those years are the marks along the base of the chart, not gaps in the name's use.
SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How Zen's figures are worked out
- Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
- Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
- The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
- The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
- A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Zen was under the floor in 18 years of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000 reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
Zen in the United States
Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been rising — up 178% as a share of boys' births.
SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Zen in New Zealand
Zen never reached 10 births in a single year in New Zealand, so it does not appear in the DIA file. That is a reporting floor, not a zero — the name may still have been registered here, just never ten times in one year.
SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Zen in England & Wales
In England and Wales, Zen was registered 141 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2024 with 26 births. It ranked #1,153 for boys in 2025 on 25 births. Across those years it has been rising.
Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.
SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Decade by decade in the US
| Year | Rank | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | below floor | <5 |
| 1980 | #5,525 | 6 |
| 1990 | #4,993 | 10 |
| 2000 | #2,805 | 32 |
| 2010 | #2,187 | 60 |
| 2020 | #1,196 | 160 |
<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.
Where in the United States
The states that registered Zen most often since 1969. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.
| State | Births |
|---|---|
| California | 426 |
| Texas | 191 |
| Florida | 176 |
| New York | 165 |
| Georgia | 84 |
| North Carolina | 55 |
| Pennsylvania | 49 |
| New Jersey | 47 |
| Arizona | 34 |
| Maryland | 29 |
Questions about Zen
How popular is the name Zen?
Zen ranked #1,141 for boys in the United States in 2025, on 185 births registered with the Social Security Administration.
When was Zen most popular?
Zen peaked in 2022, when 256 babies in the United States were given the name.
Is Zen rising or falling?
Measured as a share of all boys' births, Zen has been rising between 2016 and 2025 (+178%).
Names that had their moment when Zen did
Same sex, peaking within a few years of 2022, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.
SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026
