Abigail

342,490 people in America carry this name — ranked #146 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation Z.

Say it A buh gayl

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

AE1 B AH0 G EY2 L — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 342,490 2020 Census
  • Rank #146 Common
  • Per 100,000 113.4 about 1 in 968 people

What Abigail means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “father of joy”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Abigail name popularity by year

384,086 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2003, with 15,954 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00s 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Abigail

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Abigail Lisa — runs together
  • Abigail Ashley — same opening
  • Abigail Laura — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

On the way up

Abigail is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Is Abigail a boy's or a girl's name?

0.2% men
341,731 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Where in America Abigail is thickest on the ground

In New Hampshire the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Hampshire ×1.9
  • Vermont ×1.7
  • Maine ×1.7
  • Delaware ×1.4
  • Idaho ×1.3

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Names built the same way as Abigail

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Adult Height

Open Adult Height on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin