The original biblical given name Rachel is linguistically of Hebrew origin. The name means something like ‘ewe’. An alternative spelling for this name is Rahel.
Rachel is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The name Rachel isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Rachel ranks 165. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 11 were named Rachel. In total, there are currently 557,708 people – children, adults and seniors – named Rachel living in the United States, which is approximately 0.17 % of the entire population.
The original biblical given name Rachel is linguistically of Hebrew origin. The name means something like ‘ewe’. An alternative spelling for this name is Rahel.
What is an ewe? An ewe is a female sheep. In a flock of sheep, the ewe is typically the main caregiver for the lambs and is responsible for their care and protection.
The name Rachel seems to be an integral part of the U.S. - without Rachel, the Constitution, and basketball, the U.S. would not be the U.S. we love. This is obvious from the fact that Rachel is one of the few names that have been given in the USA in every single year since the beginning of the name statistics and thus since 1880. Of course, Rachel hasn't been equally popular in all 143 years - it was most often given as a baby name before the 2000s: In 1996 it was one of the top 10 most popular baby girl names in the entire United States, ranking #8 on the SmartGenius name statistics.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Rachel was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Rachel. Because: There are women and girls named Rachel in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Rachel is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular female first names, for example in Utah, where Rachel ranks on place 20. The greatest chance of meeting Rachel, however, is in Alaska, where one in 147 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 277 women and girls and in Mississippi, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 364 women and girls for their name before you once get Rachel as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter R is neither particularly common nor particularly rare as a first letter for girls' names: 4.1% of all common girls' names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names are A and S, while X and U are the least common initials of girls' names.
With six letters, the name Rachel is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Thus, it follows that if 4.1% of all girls' names start with an R, this initial letter occurs about as often as all 26 letters on average. And maybe interesting to know: Rebecca is the girls’ name starting with R, which is the most common of all.
If your name is Rachel and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Rachel, you can simply say:
Rocket
Apple
Cat
Hat
Elephant
Lion
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Rachel
Rachel
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
R
A
C
H
E
L
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
R
A
C
H
E
L
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Rachel sounds like this:
