Name Generator

How popular is the name Zen?

Births per year, rank history and how many Zens are alive today.

Zen (male) is a rare boys' name in England and Wales, ranked 1153rd in 2025 and given to 25 babies. This spelling of the name peaked in 2024, when 26 babies were given the name, the 1108th most popular that year. It has risen strongly over the past decade. Zen is one spelling of a name also recorded as Zehn and Zhen; the combined figures below cover every spelling.

Across all spellings of the name, the Zen you are most likely to meet is around 2 years old. Half of all Zens born in England and Wales are between 5 and 23, and there are at least 440 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 males, there's less than a 1% chance that anyone will be called Zen - on average, only one in every 689 such rooms contains a Zen.

How many babies are named Zen each year?

Includes all spellings: Zen, Zehn, Zhen. Figures before 1996 are estimates.

Where does the Zen spelling rank?

Where does the Zehn spelling rank?

Where does the Zhen spelling rank?

Where this data comes from

Figures from 1996 onwards are the Office for National Statistics' annual baby-name registrations for England and Wales, which record every name given to three or more babies in a year. Figures before 1996 are estimates: the ONS published only top-100 rankings at ten-year intervals back to 1904, so counts for those years are modelled from the rankings, calibrated against Douglas Galbi's long-run research into English name frequencies, and shown with an uncertainty band. Estimates of living bearers combine these birth figures with national life tables and ONS mid-year population estimates.

One limit worth naming: these figures count names as registered at birth. Anyone who changes their name later in life - including trans people, and anyone who adopts a different name by deed poll or simply by use - is not reflected here. Birth registrations record where a name began, not the name a person lives with.