Abygail
Feminine · “my father is joy”
Abigail is not a word, it is a sentence. Hebrew names very often are: avi is my father and gil is joy, and the name states a whole proposition, my father is joy. Abygail keeps the clause intact and swaps one vowel for a letter that looks more modern.
How old is the name Abygail?
Abygail first appears in US birth records in 1974 — 51 years ago. The typical Abygail alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 2,800 people named Abygail are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Abygail most popular?
Abygail peaked in 2009, reaching #1334 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 4,991 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Avigayil to Abygail
The story of Abygail
Abigail appears in the first book of Samuel as the wife of Nabal and then of David, and she is one of the few women in the Hebrew Bible who is given a speech that changes the plot. English took the name from the sixteenth-century Bible translations, and it became so associated with waiting-women in seventeenth-century plays that abigail spent two centuries as a common noun meaning a lady's maid. It recovered completely in twentieth-century America, becoming a top-ten name in the 2000s, and the respellings followed the popularity as they always do. Substituting y for i is the oldest and cheapest of them, and Abygail's best year is 2009.
Meaning
my father is joy
Hebrew Avigayil, from avi, my father, and gil, joy or rejoicing. This is a sentence name, a very common Semitic type in which a name asserts something rather than describing someone; Elizabeth, Isaiah, Nathaniel and Michael are all built the same way. The y in this spelling is an English substitution and has no bearing on the Hebrew.
How the name formed
- Avigayil
- Abigail
- Abygail
Related forms: Avigayil · Abigail · Abigaelle · Abigaille
Pronouncing Abygail
AB-ih-gale
Three syllables with the stress at the front and a secondary stress on the last. The y in this spelling is pronounced as a short i and changes nothing.
Nicknames for Abygail
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1974
- Most girls named
- 2009180 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1334reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%18 in 2025, from 18
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Abygail in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Avigayil in Hebrew — transliteration
- Abigail in Spanish — same name
- Abigaelle in French — related form
- Abigaille in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Abygails among us
people named Abygail are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Abygail
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Abygail
- #6325
- Abygail on the 2025 chart
- #44
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Abygail went to 18 girls in 2025, but Abigail and Abbigail are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 5,015, which makes it the 44th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,281 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 320 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Abygail itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Kadie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Abygail's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kadie climbed just as high around 1988, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kadie's path sketches the road Abygail is walking now.
Abygail sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Abygail beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Abygail in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Hebrew meaning that can be stated in four words.
- Abby and Gail are both fully independent names, in different generations.
- The y makes it visually distinct while keeping the sound completely standard.
- Abigail is the overwhelming standard spelling and will be written for you.
- Abigayle, Abbigail and Abigale are all in circulation too.
- The name spent two hundred years in English as a common noun for a servant, which some readers still know.
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What they receive
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Abygail
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Abygails are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,800 people named Abygail are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Abygail?
- Abygail is one of 3 recorded spellings. Abigail is the more common one — 4,941 births in 2025 against 18 for Abygail.
- How popular is the name Abygail in 2025?
- Abygail ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Abygail?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Abygail — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Abygail with classmates?
- Abygail will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Abygail
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Abygail? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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