Reuel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The biblical name Reuel is of Hebrew origin and means "friend of God"
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹuːl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Reuel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 60K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 260K
- GYGuyana1 in 12K
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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 98 (measured from records)
- 1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The biblical name Reuel is of Hebrew origin and means "friend of God". It belongs to a Benjamite ancestor mentioned in the Old Testament. While relatively uncommon, it is a name with a strong spiritual meaning, suggesting a close relationship with the divine.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Reuel 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 60K | — | Reuel | 35 |
| BR Brazil | 814 | 1 in 260K | 814 | Reuel | 52 |
| US United States | 715 | 1 in 465K | 701 | Reuel | 98 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 633K | — | Reuel | 12 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 268K | — | Reuel | 6 |
| AO Angola | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 161K | — | Reuel | 2 |
| GY Guyana | 61 | 1 in 12K | 61 | — | — |
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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; 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)
Reuel 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.
As a masculine name of Hebrew origin, Reuel means "friend of God." It is a variation of the name Raguel and is associated with several biblical figures. The name suggests a person with a gentle and generous spirit.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Reuel means "friend of God" in Hebrew. It is derived from the Hebrew words 'rea' (רֵעַ), meaning "friend," and 'El' (אֵל), meaning "God".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Reuel is of Hebrew origin and means "friend of God".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, pers. name (J. R. R. Tolkien)
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Reuel Williamsb. 1783USAmerican politician
- Reuel Washburnb. 1793USAmerican judge and politician (1793-1878)
- Arthur Reuel Tolkienb. 1857father of J. R. R. Tolkien
- J. R. R. Tolkienb. 1892GBnot in their usual nameEnglish writer and philologist (1892–1973)
- Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkienb. 1894ZAbrother of J. R. R. Tolkien
- Reuel Denneyb. 1913USAmerican writer (1913–1995)
- Christopher Tolkienb. 1924GBnot in their usual nameliterary scholar, writer, and editor (1924–2020)
- Reuel Abrahamb. 1924ILHitler Youth member; convert to Judaism
- Priscilla Tolkienb. 1929GBnot in their usual nameBritish literary preservationist
- Jon Heringtonb. 1954USnot in their usual nameAmerican guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, and session musician
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 30 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 814 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 808 | #9,555 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2020 | 749 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 701 | #15,926 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 590 | #5,506 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 568 | #13,247 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2010 | 518 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2000 | 309 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2010 | 231 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2000 | 209 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1990 | 111 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 1990 | 98 | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- How do you pronounce Reuel?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹuːl/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Reuel mean?
- Recorded meaning: The biblical name Reuel is of Hebrew origin and means "friend of God".
- Where does the name Reuel come from?
- The biblical name Reuel is of Hebrew origin and means "friend of God". It belongs to a Benjamite ancestor mentioned in the Old Testament. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Reuel?
- In the etymology graph, Raguel and Rauhel are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Reuel a male or female name?
- Reuel is a male 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.
- In which country does Reuel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.8 thousand people named Reuel in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled reuel.
- Where is Reuel most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Reuel is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 12 thousand people — even though Philippines holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Reuel?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 814 people named Reuel in 2022, about 1 in 260 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Reuel?
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/reuelThe 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, “Reuel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.