Holiday Calendar

National Jared Day

Next celebratedMonday, October 19, 2026

In 1976 Utah held about one per cent of America's baby boys and better than one in ten of its Jareds, and nobody has ever explained the spike. October 19 gives the name a day; the state stays a puzzle.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEOctober 19
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The name is documented; the day is not.

No founder, sponsor or registrar has been identified for National Jared Day. The Federal Register carries no document naming it, and HathiTrust's full-text index, which reaches the printed calendars of observances, returns nothing for the phrase. Two archived October 19 index pages from 2019 and 2021 do not list it either, so the circulation appears recent, but no evidence dates the day itself.

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INTRO

In 1976 one state produced a tenth of America's Jareds

National Jared Day sits on a name that America took up very unevenly. In 1976 the Social Security Administration recorded 2,929 boys called Jared. Utah, which supplied about one per cent of the boys in the agency's state files, accounted for 308 of them.

That is better than one in ten. The ranking says it a second way: Jared finished ninth among boys born in Utah that year and ninetieth in the country as a whole.

Nobody has explained why. The published survey of Utah naming lists 337 names the state took up before the rest of the country did, and Jared is not among them.

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ORIGINS

Jared Day history

INTRODUCTION

Jared belongs to the genealogy in Genesis 5, where he fathers Enoch. Nobody in the Genesis genealogies is given a longer life except his own grandson Methuselah, by seven years. Behind the Name traces the English form to a Hebrew name it glosses as "descent".

American parents then barely touched it for eighty-five years. The Social Security Administration's national files list it in 57 of the 86 years from 1880 to 1965, never with more than 99 boys. Those files omit any name given to fewer than five babies, so the gaps mean rare, not absent.

CHAPTER 01

A signature in Philadelphia

One early American Jared is easy to find. Jared Ingersoll, born at New Haven in 1749 and a Yale graduate by 1766, signed the United States Constitution for Pennsylvania. His name still stands in the National Archives transcript, in the Pennsylvania group between FitzSimons and Wilson.

His father, also called Jared, was a British colonial official and later a prominent Loyalist. Neither man shared the Revolutionary fervour around them.

CHAPTER 02

A western resets the arithmetic

The Big Valley premiered on ABC on September 15, 1965. Richard Long played Jarrod Thomas Barkley, the eldest son and, in the Television Academy's words, a respected attorney. Behind the Name credits him with popularising Jared, citing the onomastician Cleveland Kent Evans.

The birth registers back the sequence. Jarrod, the character's own spelling, is in no American year file from 1880 to 1964, then arrives with 21 boys and reaches 219 the year after. Jared itself climbed from 99 boys to 259 over the same two years, while the national file as a whole shrank by 76,682 boys.

CHAPTER 03

Seventeen years of climbing

From 1966 the count rose in every single year until 1982, reaching 6,263. The peak came later, in 1998, when 7,462 American boys were given the name and it took its best rank, 51st. The fall after that was steady rather than sudden.

CHAPTER 04

The day with no author

The observance is the thinnest part of the record. The Federal Register carries no document naming National Jared Day. What October 19 has instead is a name the federal birth files have been counting since 1881.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A Jared signs the Constitution

Jared Ingersoll put his name to the United States Constitution as one of Pennsylvania's delegates.

The name clears the reporting floor

Five American boys named Jared appear in the Social Security Administration's national file, the first year the name reaches the five-birth threshold.

The Big Valley reaches ABC

The western premiered on September 15 with Richard Long as the eldest Barkley son, Jarrod.

The spellings multiply

Jared jumped to 259 boys, Jarrod reached 219, and Jarred and Jarod cleared five births for the first time.

A seventeen year climb ends

The count reached 6,263 after rising in every single year since 1966, then fell the following year.

The name hits its ceiling

7,462 American boys were named Jared, the highest total and the best rank the name has ever held.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Jared Day Matters

GEOGRAPHY

Four per cent of every American Jared, 1962 to 2020.

In 1975 Jared was 10.24 times as common among Utah's baby boys as among America's, while Aaron ran at 1.53, Daniel at 1.03, and Jason, the decade's biggest boys' name, was slightly less common in Utah than nationally. A 2024 study of Utah naming in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought files Jared among Book of Mormon names and puts Utah at 0.04 of all American Jareds averaged across 1962 to 2020.

COUNTING

Why births beat rankings here

The Office for National Statistics gave 92 different boys' names the same rank of 1705 in 2025, every one of them with fifteen births. That far down a register a rank describes the crowd around a name rather than the name itself.

SCALE

A cohort past two hundred thousand

The Social Security Administration's national files have recorded 206,351 American boys named Jared since 1880. Another 804 were added in 2025.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Jared Day Around the World

England and Wales

15 boys were named Jared in 2025, down from 28 in 2020; the register redacts only counts of two or fewer, so the figure is exact

Puerto Rico

also 15 boys in 2025, and there the same fifteen births put the name 100th

Australia

last ranked in New South Wales in 1999, at 89th

Canada

last ranked in 2002, at 90th

New Zealand

last ranked in 2003, at 92nd

All the days of Jared came to 962 years; then he died.
Genesis 5:20The JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Jared Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up a birth year in the national files

The Social Security Administration publishes a file for every year from 1880 to 2025 on its Beyond the Top 1000 Names page. Find the year a Jared you know was born and read the count.

WATCH

Watch an episode of The Big Valley

The western ran on ABC from September 1965 to May 1969. Richard Long played Jarrod, the eldest Barkley son and the character credited with the name's American push.

COMPARE

Compare a name's births against its rank

Pull the same name from the American and British registers and look at the number of babies rather than the position. A rank moves with the size of the register it sits in, and a count does not.

READ

Read the signature page of the Constitution

The National Archives publishes the full transcript with every signature as it was written. Jared Ingersoll's stands in the Pennsylvania group.

ASK

Ask a Jared where the name came from

Registers record what parents chose but never why they chose it. The answer sits with the family, and October 19 is a reasonable excuse to ask for it.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Jared Day?

1 / 8

In 1976, which US state accounted for better than one in ten of America's newborn Jareds?

Answer

No. The Federal Register carries no document naming it, and no proclamation, statute or official recognition turned up in the sources searched.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

12sources
7primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration2025
Beyond the Top 1000 Names
The national and state baby-name files behind every American birth count and rank on this page, covering 1880 to 2025 nationally and 1910 to 2025 by state. The page also states the agency's own privacy floor: names given to fewer than five babies in a geographic area are excluded, so a missing year means rare rather than none.
View source
Office for National Statistics9 July 2026
Baby names for boys in England and Wales: 2025
The accredited official statistics release whose Table 6 lists every boy's name registered in England and Wales, with the count for Jared in 2025 and 2020 and the note that only names given to two babies or fewer are redacted.
View source
Sefaria
Genesis 5, THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition
The full genealogy from Adam to Noah in English translation alongside the Masoretic Hebrew, giving Jared as the father of Enoch and the total of 962 years quoted on this page.
View source
National Archives and Records Administration
The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription
The official transcript of the Constitution, including the signature block in which Jared Ingersoll's name appears among the Pennsylvania delegates.
View source
National Archives and Records Administration
The Founding Fathers: Pennsylvania
Biographies of Pennsylvania's delegates, giving Ingersoll's birth at New Haven in 1749, his Yale degree in 1766, his father's position as a British colonial official and Loyalist, and his 1773 legal studies at the Middle Temple.
View source
Book of Mormon Onomasticon, Brigham Young University Library
JARED
The scholarly entry for the name in the Book of Mormon, listing two bearers with their verse citations and stating that there is no certainty about the etymology, only that it may share the Hebrew root meaning descend or go down.
View source
Federal Register
Documents search API
The federal index of proclamations, rules and notices. The exact phrase National Jared Day returns zero documents.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name26 May 2026
Meaning, origin and history of the name Jared
The etymology entry glossing the Hebrew as descent from Strong's entries h3382 and h3381, attributing the name's 1960s rise to Jarrod Barkley of The Big Valley on the authority of Cleveland Kent Evans, and carrying the country rankings for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
View source
Behind the Name2025
Popularity for the name Jared: Puerto Rico
The year-by-year ranking for the name in Puerto Rico, including the 2025 entry at 100th on fifteen uses.
View source
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon ThoughtSpring 2024
David Ellingson Eddington, Utah Naming Practices, 1960-2020
A quantitative study of Utah given names that classifies Jared among Book of Mormon names, puts Utah at 0.04 of all American Jareds averaged across 1962 to 2020, and lists the 337 names for which it found Utah to be the trendsetter, a list that does not include Jared.
View source
Television Academy Foundation
Big Valley, The
The show record giving the ABC run from September 15, 1965 to May 19, 1969 and describing Jarrod Thomas Barkley, played by Richard Long, as the eldest son and a respected attorney.
View source
HathiTrust Digital Library
Full-text search
The full-text index that reaches the printed calendars of observances. It returns no results for National Jared Day.
View source
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