Rachel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: She is one of the four Matriarchs of Israel, symbolizing the compassionate mother who intercedes and weeps for her children's suffering and exile
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹeɪt͡ʃəl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rachel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Libya it is the 34th most common given name.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 501(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 505
- ILIsrael≈1 in 549
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #294 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 649 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 501 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Rahel in ID Indonesia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
She is one of the four Matriarchs of Israel, symbolizing the compassionate mother who intercedes and weeps for her children's suffering and exile.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rachel counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Rachel | 78 |
| US United States | #138 | 493,726 | 1 in 674 | 493K | Rachel | 649 |
| GB United Kingdom | #82 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 501 | 63 | Rachel | 398 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Rahel | 99 |
| PH Philippines | #299 | ≈77,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Rachel | 161 |
| AU Australia | #84 | ≈50,000 est. | ≈1 in 505 | 106 | Rachel | 307 |
| IL Israel | #829 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 549 | — | Rachel | 135 |
| NZ New Zealand | #72 | ≈8,100 est. | ≈1 in 611 | — | Rachel | 209 |
| LY Libya | #34 | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 870 | — | Rachel | 10 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Rachel is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
A classic biblical name symbolizing beauty, gentleness, and maternal devotion.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Hebrew: 'ewe'; wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph in the Bible.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In French, Hebrew origin; from Rachel, meaning 'ewe'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Biblical name (meaning ‘ewe’ in Hebrew}), borne by the beloved wife of Jacob and mother (after long barrenness) of Joseph (Genesis 28-35) and of Benjamin, at whose birth she died. In the Middle Ages and later this was regarded as a characteristically Jewish name, but it is now also widely used among Gentiles.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Younger daughter of Laban, sister to Leah, and second wife of Jacob.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Rachel Carsonb. 1907USAmerican marine biologist and conservationist (1907–1964)
- Lynn Redgraveb. 1943GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress (1943–2010)
- Rachel Griffithsb. 1968AUAustralian actress
- Rachel Weiszb. 1970GBBritish actress (born 1970)
- Rachel Maddowb. 1973USAmerican television news host and political commentator
- Rachel McAdamsb. 1978CACanadian actress (born 1978)
- Rachel Nicholsb. 1980USAmerican actress and model (born 1980)
- Rachel Bilsonb. 1981USAmerican actress
- Meghan Markleb. 1981USnot in their usual namemember of the British royal family and Duchess of Sussex since 2018
- Rachel Bostonb. 1982USAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 132 sources across 67 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 493K | #90 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.2K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 572 | #90 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2007 | 106 | #71 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2005 | 52 | — |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Rachel mean, and where does it come from?
- She is one of the four Matriarchs of Israel, symbolizing the compassionate mother who intercedes and weeps for her children's suffering and exile. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is Rachel a male or female name?
- Rachel is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Rachel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 493,726 people named Rachel in 2020, about 1 in 674 residents.
- How common is Rachel compared with other names?
- In Libya, Rachel is the 34th most common given name of 8,449 given names recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name Rachel?
- In the etymology graph, Raquel, Rachael and Rachelle are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Rachel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Rachel in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rachel.
- How do you pronounce Rachel?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹeɪt͡ʃəl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Rachel?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/rachelThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Rachel” — the 34th most common given name in Libya. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.