Meaning not yet researched.
Zen: US boys given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 185 in 2025. Its best rank was #906 in 2022.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #906 in 2022; #1,144 in 2025. About 81% of babies named Zen in 2025 were boys.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#1,144 for US boys in 2025. Its best year was 2022, at #906.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Zen: US boys and girls given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 185 boys in 2025. Peak: #906 in 2022 · most boys in one year: 256 (2022).
In 2025, 185 US boys were named Zen, making it the 1,144th most common boys’ name of the year, down 188 places from #956 in 2024. That is 53 fewer than the 238 boys named Zen in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #906, reached in 2022. That year also had the most boys given the name: 256. For comparison, it was #1,954 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
In 2025, 43 US girls were named Zen, making it the 3,575th most common girls’ name of the year, up 182 places from #3,757 in 2024. That is 2 more than the 41 girls named Zen in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #2,688, reached in 2022. That year also had the most girls given the name: 65. For comparison, it was #5,827 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Zen in 39 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1969 with 5 babies. In all, 3,313 US babies have been given the name, 18% of them girls and 82% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2020s, with 1,556 babies named Zen.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 1,653 US boys were named Zen; the busiest of those years was 2022, with 256. In 2025 that was about 1 in 9,233 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Zen ranked highest in Maryland in 2025, at #570 for boys there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Related spellings in the SSA files include Sean (426,606 babies since 1880), Zion (53,897 babies since 1880), Zyon (5,045 babies since 1880) and Zyan (2,074 babies since 1880). Rarer spellings such as Zene are summarised on this page.
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Rare spellings summarised here: Zene (15).
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Zen in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
US boys. Rank within each state. SSA leaves out states where fewer than five boys got the name, so 38 are not listed.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank 2025 | Rank 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | 9 | #570 | — |
| Washington | 10 | #683 | — |
| Georgia | 14 | #709 | — |
| New York | 21 | #715 | #1,828 |
| New Jersey | 9 | #763 | — |
| Colorado | 6 | #846 | — |
| Florida | 17 | #886 | #1,947 |
| North Carolina | 9 | #935 | — |
| Arizona | 5 | #1,033 | — |
| California | 21 | #1,039 | #1,082 |
| Michigan | 6 | #1,111 | — |
| Texas | 17 | #1,249 | #2,741 |
| Ohio | 5 | #1,469 | — |
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 43 | #3,575 | 185 | #1,144 |
| 2024 | 41 | #3,757 | 238 | #956 |
| 2023 | 60 | #2,851 | 242 | #936 |
| 2022 | 65 | #2,688 | 256 | #906 |
| 2021 | 52 | #3,155 | 166 | #1,187 |
| 2020 | 48 | #3,280 | 160 | #1,199 |
| 2019 | 46 | #3,450 | 128 | #1,393 |
| 2018 | 30 | #4,658 | 112 | #1,529 |
| 2017 | 24 | #5,515 | 92 | #1,716 |
| 2016 | 25 | #5,441 | 74 | #1,973 |
| 2015 | 23 | #5,827 | 75 | #1,954 |
| 2014 | 11 | #10,119 | 88 | #1,729 |
| 2013 | 9 | #11,957 | 63 | #2,138 |
| 2012 | 15 | #8,205 | 56 | #2,325 |
| 2011 | 13 | #9,141 | 63 | #2,128 |
| 2010 | 13 | #9,221 | 60 | #2,211 |
| 2009 | 9 | #12,416 | 70 | #2,009 |
| 2008 | 8 | #13,814 | 74 | #1,947 |
| 2007 | 22 | #6,321 | 52 | #2,472 |
| 2006 | 6 | #17,139 | 51 | #2,448 |
| 2005 | — | — | 50 | #2,364 |
| 2004 | 10 | #10,685 | 51 | #2,282 |
| 2003 | 5 | #18,409 | 38 | #2,673 |
| 2002 | 6 | #15,415 | 36 | #2,684 |
| 2001 | — | — | 38 | #2,561 |
| 2000 | 6 | #15,020 | 32 | #2,863 |
| 1999 | — | — | 31 | #2,794 |
| 1998 | 5 | #16,585 | 32 | #2,650 |
| 1997 | — | — | 12 | #5,285 |
| 1996 | — | — | 17 | #4,020 |
| 1995 | — | — | 15 | #4,279 |
| 1994 | — | — | 10 | #5,866 |
| 1993 | — | — | 12 | #5,001 |
| 1992 | — | — | 7 | #7,418 |
| 1991 | — | — | 6 | #8,230 |
| 1990 | — | — | 10 | #5,379 |
| 1989 | — | — | 5 | #9,230 |
| 1980 | — | — | 6 | #6,243 |
| 1969 | — | — | 5 | #5,040 |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).