Rachel
About 575,748 American babies have been named Rachel since 1880, most of them around 1985. In 2025 it ranked 250th. About 508,000 Rachels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 36.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Rachel boys named Rachel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 575,748
- Estimated living today
- 508,000
- Median age today
- 36
- Peak year
- 1985
- Best rank
- 13th
- Rank in 2025
- 250th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 573,957 / 1,791
How old the living Rachels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 575,748 babies given the name since 1880, about 508,000 are alive — 88 in every hundred. Roughly 36,000 of them are children and 26,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1989 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 Ancient Greek Ῥαχήλ, from Biblical Hebrew רָחֵל (“ewe”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Rachels
- Rachel Carson (1907–1964)American marine biologist and conservationist
- Rachel McAdams (born 1978)Canadian actress
- Rachel Weisz (born 1970)British actress
- Rachel Maddow (born 1973)American television news host and political commentator
- Rachel Zegler (born 2001)American actress
- Rachel Corrie (1979–2003)American anti-war and human rights activist
- Rachel Bilson (born 1981)American actress
- Rachel Griffiths (born 1968)Australian actress
People named Rachel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rachel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Rachel is most concentrated in Alaska (1.6×), Utah (1.5×), New Hampshire (1.4×), Vermont (1.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1985
The most popular girls’ names the year Rachel peaked:
Rachel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Rachel +1 spelling | 51,460 | 51st |
| England and Wales girls | Rachel | 19,140 | 28th |
| Ireland girls | Rachel | 14,435 | 6th |
| Scotland girls | Rachel | 11,587 | 8th |
| New Zealand girls | Rachel | 9,769 | 3rd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Rachel | 2,436 | 10th |
| Belgium girls | Rachel | 1,866 | 127th |
| Norway girls | Rachel | 614 | 212th |
| France boys | Rachel | 480 | 788th |
| Switzerland girls | Rachel | 470 | 174th |
| Italy girls | Rachel | 438 | — |
| Poland girls | Rachel | 36 birth registrations | 340th |
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.
Rachel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Rachel | 233 | 0.019% | 216th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Rachel | 226 | 0.052% | 82nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Rachel | 11 | 0.017% | 104th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Rachel is most concentrated in Valais, where 0.06% of children were given it – 37 of them.
Rachel: rank by region
In 2025, Rachel was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Rachel | 350 | 15 |
| Wallonia | Rachel | 149 | 17 |
In 2023, Rachel was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Rachel | 8 | 1 |
In 2025, Rachel was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Rachel | 326 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Rachel appears in the lists for Province of Hainaut (56th) and Province of Antwerp (182nd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, 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.
Rachel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 538th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Rachel 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Rachel | 5,736 | 8,475 |
| Finland girls | Rachel | 115 | 238 |
| the Netherlands boys | Rachel | 7 | 96 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Rachel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 801 women called Rachel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Rachel | 57 | 0.103 | 918 |
| Palmas, Las | Rachel | 41 | 0.070 | 1,333 |
| Málaga | Rachel | 56 | 0.061 | 1,016 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Rachel | 53 | 0.052 | 1,297 |
| Balears, Illes | Rachel | 30 | 0.048 | 1,328 |
| Rioja, La | Rachel | 7 | 0.042 | 1,379 |
Listed in 25 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 27 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Rachel 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.