Rachel

493,726 people in America carry this name — ranked #90 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it RAY chuhl

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

R EY1 CH AH0 L — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 493,726 2020 Census
  • Rank #90 Common
  • Per 100,000 163.5 about 1 in 671 people
  • As a surname 1,851 ranked #15,273 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Rachel

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “ewe”.

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.

Rachel name popularity by year

569,291 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1985, with 16,438 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. 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 Rachel

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Rachel Lisa — runs together
  • Rachel Laura — runs together
  • Rachel Rebecca — same opening

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.

Going quiet

Rachel has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

Is Rachel used for boys or for girls?

0.1% men
493,154 women

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

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 78.1%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 9.3%
  • Two or more races — 3.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 3.6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

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.

Where the name Rachel is most common in the US

In Alaska the name is given 1.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alaska ×1.4
  • Minnesota ×1.4
  • Utah ×1.3
  • Vermont ×1.2
  • Wisconsin ×1.2

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.

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.

Names with the same rhythm as Rachel

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 — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

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