Israel
11,514 people in the United States were counted with the surname Israel in the 2020 census, making it the 3,045th most common in the country. That is about one person in 26,000.
By the numbers
- People
- 11,514
- Rank
- 3,045th
- How common
- 1 in 26,000
- Per 100,000
- 3.9
Where the name comes from
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.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Israel described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Israel
- Rinus Israël (1942–2025)Dutch footballer and manager
- Steve Israel (born 1958)former U.S. Representative from New York
- Werner Israel (1931–2022)Canadian physicist
- Franco Israel (born 2000)Uruguayan association football player
- Jonathan Israel (born 1946)British historian
- Märt Israel (born 1983)Estonian athletics competitor
People named Israel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Also a first name
Israel has been given to 72,874 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2007. See it as a given name.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.