Jeremiah
jer-ih-MY-ah
The name Jeremiah is the English form of the Hebrew Yirmeyahu, traditionally interpreted as “YHWH will exalt” or “YHWH establishes”, from the verbal root rum (“to rise, to lift up”) combined with the divine element Yahu.
An alternative reading derives it from yarah (“to throw, to shoot”), giving “YHWH hurls” or “YHWH appoints”. The Septuagint Greek rendered it Ieremias, and the Latin Vulgate as Ieremias, from which English derived Jeremy as the medieval shortened form.
The most influential bearer is the prophet Jeremiah, active in Judah from approximately 626 to 586 BCE, the years leading up to and immediately following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.
What the name Jeremiah means
His prophetic book is the second longest in the Hebrew Bible, and tradition also attributes to him the Book of Lamentations, mourning the fall of the holy city.
His sustained denunciations of injustice gave the English language the word jeremiad, a long, mournful complaint. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches.
The name was used in medieval Catholic Europe almost exclusively in the short form Jeremy, but the full form Jeremiah was embraced by English Puritans in the seventeenth century and carried to colonial America.
The Civil War song Jeremiah, Blow the Fire and the gospel hymn Balm in Gilead, drawing on Jeremiah 8:22, kept the name in the popular imagination.
Three Dog Night”s Joy to the World (1971) opens with the line “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”, an image now woven into American childhood memory.
According to US Social Security Administration records, Jeremiah ranked in the top 500 throughout the late nineteenth century, then rose dramatically after 1970. It broke the top 100 in 1996 and reached its peak rank of 49 in 2010.
In 2023 it held position 57, with strong adoption across the Bible Belt, the Mountain West and African-American communities, where it has long been a staple of biblical naming.
Contemporary bearers include US basketball player Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and pastor Jeremiah Wright.
US popularity over time
Numerology and symbolism
Based on Pythagorean numerology — a traditional system linking name letters to numbers. Presented for cultural interest.
Famous people named Jeremiah
Jeremiah - similar names
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Ways to spell Jeremiah
| Variant | Language |
|---|---|
| Jeremy | English |
| Jerry | English diminutive |
| Jeremias | Greek/Latin/Spanish |
| Yeremia | Hebrew |
| Jeremi | Polish |