Israel
Israel is a boy's name that peaked in 2007, when it was the 204th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 315th. About 66,000 Israels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 20.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Israel boys named Israel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 72,874
- Estimated living today
- 66,000
- Median age today
- 20
- Peak year
- 2007
- Best rank
- 204th
- Rank in 2025
- 315th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,637 / 71,237
How old the living Israels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 72,874 babies given the name since 1880, about 66,000 are alive — 91 in every hundred. Roughly 29,000 of them are children and 2,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2005 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Middle English Israel, from Old English, borrowed from Latin Israel, from Ancient Greek Ἰσραήλ, from Hebrew יִשְׂרָאֵל (“Israel”). In the Bible, it is said to be from the name יִשְׂרֶה אֵל given to Jacob in, after which his descendants came to be known as Israelites and their land as the "kingdom/land of Israel".
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Israels
- Israel Kamakawiwoʻole (1959–1997)Hawaiian singer
- Israel Katz (born 1955)Israeli politician, Minister of Defense of Israel
- Israel Gelfand (1913–2009)Soviet-American mathematician
- Israel Zangwill (1864–1926)British Zionist author
- Israel Adesanya (born 1989)New Zealander mixed martial artist
- Israel Tal (1924–2010)Israeli military officer
- Israel Kirzner (born 1930)American economist
- Israel Broussard (born 1994)American actor
People named Israel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Israel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Israel is most concentrated in Texas (2.9×), Arizona (2.6×), New Mexico (2.3×), Nevada (2.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2007
The most popular boys’ names the year Israel peaked:
Israel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Israel | 1,351 | 520th |
| France boys | Israel +1 spelling | 1,180 | 1,415th |
| New Zealand boys | Israel | 52 | 92nd |
| Ireland boys | Israel | 51 | 273rd |
| England and Wales girls | Israel | 40 | 3,681st |
| Belgium boys | Israel | 33 | 1,091st |
| Scotland boys | Israel | 19 | 444th |
| Poland boys | Israel | 5 birth registrations | 643rd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Israel: rank by region
In 2017, Israel was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Israel | 869 | 5 |
In 2022, Israel was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wielkopolskie | Israel | 258 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Israel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 580th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Israel among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Israel | 19 | 136 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Israel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 20,176 men called Israel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huelva | Israel | 502 | 1.878 | 84 |
| Cádiz | Israel | 1,142 | 1.840 | 91 |
| Sevilla | Israel | 1,727 | 1.791 | 86 |
| Toledo | Israel | 667 | 1.757 | 94 |
| Valladolid | Israel | 436 | 1.694 | 96 |
| Cuenca | Israel | 129 | 1.277 | 110 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Israel against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.