MEANING & HISTORY
What does Zachary mean?
Zachary is an English form related to Zacharias and Zechariah. The Hebrew Zekharyah combines a remembering element with the divine name Yahweh.
Its conventional meaning is Yahweh has remembered. The y ending reflects the English development of the transmitted name, not an extra Hebrew root. Biblical bearers helped preserve the family of names across Greek, Latin and European languages.
References for this explanation
Pronunciation & syllables
Dictionary readings are kept by language. Select the reading that matches your intended pronunciation. Dots show the source’s written divisions; they are not a universal syllable count across languages.
Wiktionary contributors / Kaikki / Wiktextract · CC BY-SA 4.0
Origin and name formation
Language-specific accounts from the dictionary. A shared spelling can have more than one history.
EnglishEtymology & source
From clipped forms of Zachariah and Zacharias + -y, from Hebrew זְכַרְיָה (Zəḵaryā, “Yahweh has remembered”) via Latin Zacharias and Koine Greek Ζαχαρίας (Zakharías). As an American city, named after the farmer Darel Zachary who sold the land for a local depot on the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1880s. Doublet of Zach, Zacharias, Zachariah, Zechariah, Zakariya, and Jakariya.
A male given name from Hebrew.
Wiktionary: Zachary (English) ↗ · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
Adapted from Wiktionary contributors via Kaikki/Wiktextract. Source accounts remain in their original English; editorial summaries and filters are adapted. Attribution and downloads
People with the name Zachary
Public figures and other documented namesakes linked by an explicit given-name claim. This is a selection of records, not a popularity ranking.
DOCUMENTED NAMESAKE
Kai Sotto
Filipino basketball player (born 2002)
The record establishes the name association, not the person’s intended meaning, pronunciation or ancestry. Descriptions are attributed to Wikidata contributors (CC0).
Use in Philippine-linked records
PSA · OFFICIAL BIRTH RECORDS
Zachary in the birth records
Exact spelling and stated year in the published name tables. Read the counts as individual snapshots.
Tables included: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2016 fact sheet lists five names per sex; the later tables include ten. Missing counts are not inferred. Sex categories follow the official tables, independently of dictionary gender labels. Explore the official tables →
Similar names to Zachary
Names with a similar opening or ending, ordered by spelling distance. Similar spelling does not imply the same meaning or origin.
Names in this collection
- Cary♂Variant of Carey, from Irish Ó Ciardha
- January♂♀The month of Janus
- Zacharias♂Yahweh has remembered
- Gary♂From the Germanic name element “spear”
- Hillary♂♀Cheerful; from Hilarius or Hilaria
- Mary♀English form of Maria, from Hebrew Miryam
- Zaira♀Italian and Spanish form of Voltaire’s Zaïre
- Zara♀Sarah-related form; also associated with Arabic Zahra
What rhymes with Zachary?
No dictionary-confirmed rhyme match is available for this spelling in the current catalogue.
Explore Zachary further
Follow the sources
- Wikidata given-name item Q8063927 — Zachary (opens in a new tab)
Given-name identity, native labels, language associations and explicit class where present; not lexical meaning or population frequency.
- Wikidata — Kai Sotto (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q8063927 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wikidata — Zekken (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q8063927 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wiktionary contributors — Zachary (English) (opens in a new tab)
Language-specific given-name etymology; shared spelling does not prove every bearer has this origin.
- Wiktionary: Zachary (opens in a new tab)
Personal-name formation and etymological relationships; imported dictionary account consulted.