Rachael
Rachael reached its high-water mark in 1990 at number 111, and has been recorded 82,650 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 4,987th. About 77,000 Rachaels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 37.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Rachael boys named Rachael
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 82,650
- Estimated living today
- 77,000
- Median age today
- 37
- Peak year
- 1990
- Best rank
- 111th
- Rank in 2025
- 4,987th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 82,469 / 181
How old the living Rachaels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 82,650 babies given the name since 1880, about 77,000 are alive — 93 in every hundred. Roughly 3,500 of them are children and 1,700 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1988 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
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Rachaels
- Rachael Leigh Cook (born 1979)American actress and model
- Rachael Taylor (born 1984)Australian actress and model
- Rachael Harris (born 1968)American actress and comedian
- Rachael Carpani (1980–2025)Australian actress
- Rachael Yamagata (born 1977)American musician
- Rachael Stirling (born 1977)British actress
- Rachael Adams (born 1990)American volleyball player
- Rachael Ray (born 1968)American television host, businesswoman, celebrity cook, and author
People named Rachael with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rachael is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Rachael is most concentrated in Alaska (2.2×), Oregon (1.7×), Utah (1.7×), Washington (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1990
The most popular girls’ names the year Rachael peaked:
Rachael elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Rachael | 4,708 | 77th |
| Scotland girls | Rachael | 4,113 | 27th |
| New Zealand girls | Rachael | 3,210 | 25th |
| Ireland girls | Rachael | 2,252 | 60th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Rachael | 562 | 25th |
| France girls | Rachael | 15 | 5,987th |
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.
Rachael 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 girls | Rachael | 11 | 16 |
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.
Related names
Rachael 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.