Abigail
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: Hebrew ab 'father' + guilah 'joy': 'father's joy'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/aβiʝeil/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Abigail is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In El Salvador it is the 40th most common given name.
- USUnited States1 in 971(measured from records)
- ECEcuador1 in 2.5K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 386 (measured from records)
- 1 in 971 (inferred from the name graph)
342,490 people, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
A classic biblical name signifying 'father's joy', popular in the English-speaking world since the Reformation.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Abigail is read(measured from records)
Abigail is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Spanish47%
Hebrew ab 'father' + guilah 'joy': 'father's joy'.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
- English40%
A lady's maid.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Abigail 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 342,490 | 1 in 971 | 342K | Abigail | 386 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Abigail | 28 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Abigail | 101 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | 42 | Abigail | 104 |
| AR Argentina | #215 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | 3.3K | Abigail | 98 |
| EC Ecuador | #234 | 6,792 | 1 in 2.5K | 6.8K | Abigail | 44 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 2,723 | 1 in 1.9K | 2.7K | — | 61 |
| SV El Salvador | #40 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Abigail | 50 |
| GY Guyana | — | 449 | 1 in 1.7K | 449 | — | — |
342,490 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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: RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Abigail is also recorded in 4 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 signifying 'father's joy', popular in the English-speaking world since the Reformation.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A timeless biblical name meaning 'my father is joy,' symbolizing intelligence and beauty.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In Jewish tradition, she is counted as one of the seven female prophets and is cited as a paragon of wisdom and peacemaking. In Christian tradition, she is viewed as a type of the church or a figure of prudent intercession.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In Swedish, Abigail är ett hebreiskt namn med betydelsen ’fadern har fröjdat sig’. I Gamla testamentet i Bibeln är Abigail en klok kvinna, gift med Nabal och sedan med kung David. Namnet började användas i Sverige under 1700-talet men har varit ovanligt.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Abigail Adamsb. 1744USFirst Lady of the United States from 1797 to 1801
- Abigail Adams Smithb. 1765USdaughter of John Adams (1765-1813)
- Abigail Fillmoreb. 1798USFirst Lady of the United States from 1850 to 1853
- Susan Sarandonb. 1946USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and activist
- Abigail Johnsonb. 1961USAmerican businesswoman, business executive, heiress, billionaire
- Sarah Lancashireb. 1964GBnot in their usual nameEnglish actress
- Abigail Thawb. 1965GBEnglish actress
- Abigail Spencerb. 1981USAmerican actress
- Abigail Spearsb. 1981USAmerican tennis player
- Abigail Breslinb. 1996USAmerican 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 107 sources across 59 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 342K | #146 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 6.8K | #281 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 4.9K | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 3.3K | #35 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 2.7K | #280 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 759 | #146 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 449 | #214 |
| AR Argentina | datos.gob.ar — nombres.datos.gob.ar per-name lookup (1922–2015) | 2015 | 335 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 2015 | 335 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 151 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 42 | #102 |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- Is Abigail a male or female name?
- Abigail 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.
- Where does the name Abigail come from?
- A classic biblical name signifying 'father's joy', popular in the English-speaking world since the Reformation. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What does the name Abigail mean?
- In Spanish, Hebrew ab 'father' + guilah 'joy': 'father's joy'.
- What are other forms of the name Abigail?
- In the etymology graph, Gael, Abi and Abegail are forms of the same name in other languages; Gail, Gayle and Abby are recorded short or pet forms.
- In which country does Abigail have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 342 thousand people named Abigail, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled abigail.
- Where is Abigail most common?
- Abigail is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 971 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Abigail?
- In the United States, the national register counted 342,490 people named Abigail in 2020, about 1 in 971 residents.
- How common is Abigail compared with other names?
- In El Salvador, Abigail is the 40th most common given name of 28,124 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Abigail?
- A machine transcription gives /aβiʝeil/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What do you want to know about Abigail?
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/abigailThe 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, “Abigail” — the 40th most common given name in El Salvador. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.