Isabel

129,711 people in America carry this name — ranked #435 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation Z.

Say it IH zuh behl

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

IH1 Z AH0 B EH2 L — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 129,711 2020 Census
  • Rank #435 Common
  • Per 100,000 42.9 about 1 in 2,555 people

Where Isabel comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “oath of Baal”.

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.

Isabel through the years

124,800 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2006, with 4,018 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 for Isabel

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

Better avoided

  • Isabel Lisa — runs together
  • Isabel Laura — runs together
  • Isabel Lori — 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

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

Is Isabel used for boys or for girls?

1.6% men
127,675 women

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

Same syllables and stress as Isabel

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

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

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 25.9%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.4%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 67.0%
  • Two or more races — 2.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.0%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How Isabel is spelled

Isabel is how 25% of them spell it — 512,903 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

The most common full names

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.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs 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