Seth
given name · Latin script
Meaning: either Hindu, Jain, and Parsi surname from Hindi seih ('merchant, banker'), or from Gaelic Mac Silhigh / O Sithigh
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sɛθ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Seth is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Ghana it is the 29th most common given name.
- GHGhana≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.3K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 7.6K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 568 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
144,312 people, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Sethi in PK Pakistan, NZ New Zealand.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Hindiseih'merchant(measured from records)
- Gaelic Mac Silhigh/(measured from records)
either Hindu, Jain, and Parsi surname from Hindi seih ('merchant, banker'), or from Gaelic Mac Silhigh / O Sithigh.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Seth 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 | #559 | 144,312 | 1 in 2.3K | 144K | Seth | 568 |
| GH Ghana | #29 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Seth | 95 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Sethi | 51 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Seth | 61 |
| GB United Kingdom | #760 | ≈7,800 est. | ≈1 in 8.4K | 1.5K | Seth | 212 |
| AU Australia | #829 | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | 123 | Seth | 167 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,874 | 1 in 3.5K | 2.9K | Seth | 63 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈640 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | 20 | Sethi | 74 |
144,312 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); 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)
Seth 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.
A biblical name meaning 'appointed' or 'placed', often chosen to signify a gift from God or a new beginning.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
He represents the restoration of the righteous lineage and the 'seed of the woman' following Abel's death.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Hebrew biblical name; the appointed one, one of the sons of Adam
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, The third son of Adam and Eve.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Seth (m.fl. former) är ett bibliskt namn, på hebreiska Shet, son till Adam och Eva. Namnet förklaras i Bibeln i anslutning till ett verb ’skänka’, när Eva säger att sonen ska heta Set, eftersom ”Gud har skänkt mig ett nytt barn i stället för Abel, som Kain dödade”. Formen Seth är den klart vanligaste i Sverige idag. I den rikssvenska almanackan 30 december.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Seth Barnes Nicholsonb. 1891USAmerican astronomer (1891–1963)
- Seth Shostakb. 1943USastronomer
- David Copperfieldb. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican illusionist
- Seth Gilliamb. 1968USAmerican actor
- Seth MacFarlaneb. 1973USAmerican writer, actor, and producer (born 1973)
- Seth Meyersb. 1973USAmerican comedian, television host and actor
- Seth Greenb. 1974USAmerican actor
- Seth Gabelb. 1981USAmerican actor
- Seth Rogenb. 1982CACanadian actor, comedian, and filmmaker (born 1982)
- Seth Rollinsb. 1986USAmerican professional wrestler and actor
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 91 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.5K | #8,999 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.3K | #9,701 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.5K | #11,396 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- Is Seth a male or female name?
- Seth 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 does the name Seth mean, and where does it come from?
- either Hindu, Jain, and Parsi surname from Hindi seih ('merchant, banker'), or from Gaelic Mac Silhigh / O Sithigh. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Seth?
- A machine transcription gives /sɛθ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Seth have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 144 thousand people named Seth, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled seth.
- How common is the name Seth?
- In the United States, the national register counted 144,312 people named Seth in 2020, about 1 in 2.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Seth compared with other names?
- In the United States, Seth is the 559th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Seth?
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/sethThe 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, “Seth” — the 559th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.