Amal
Feminine · Arabic roots · “hope (Arabic)”
Amal is given to both — 4,141 girls and 372 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Amal is the Arabic word for hope, used as a given name across the Arabic-speaking world for generations and carried from there into English on the strength of two syllables and four letters. It is one of those names that needs no translation to be sayable — short, open, with the stress light on either side. The same spelling has arrived in America by more than one road, which is much of what makes it interesting.
How old is the name Amal?
Amal first appears in US birth records in 1962 — 63 years ago. The typical Amal is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 4,100 people named Amal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amal most popular?
Amal peaked in 2021, reaching #1045 nationally. Today it ranks #1241, 196 places below that high. See the whole 2021 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From أمل (Arabic amal, 'hope') to Amal
The story of Amal
The Arabic noun amal, hope, has been in use as a personal name for a long time and remains current across the Levant, the Gulf and North Africa, given most often to girls. It traveled into English-speaking countries with Arabic-speaking families, and it traveled easily: nothing about the spelling asks an English reader to guess. Turkish arrived at the same idea through its own borrowing of the word, which is why Emel exists there alongside Amal. Separately, an Amal appears in the Hebrew Bible as a man's name in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles, and a quite unrelated Amal, from Sanskrit amala, has long been a boy's name in Bengal — three lines that happen to meet at one short spelling.
Meaning
hope (Arabic)
For the Arabic name أمل, the meaning is plain and undisputed: hope. Worth knowing that identical spellings reach English from elsewhere too — a Sanskrit-derived Amal (from amala, 'pure, spotless') used chiefly for boys in Bengali and other South Asian traditions, and an Arabic 'amal (عمل, 'deed, work') behind the name in Indonesian and Malay usage. A child called Amal in the US is most often carrying the first of these.
How the name formed
- أملArabic amal, 'hope'
- Amal
- EmelTurkish
Related forms: أمل · Emel · Amel · Amaal · امل · Amal
Pronouncing Amal
AM-al (also uh-MAHL)
Arabic stresses the first syllable, close to AM-al with a short first vowel. In American English many families say uh-MAHL, stress on the second. Both are in real use; whichever you pick, expect to state it once and be understood.
Nicknames for Amal
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
- 1962
- Most girls named
- 2021241 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1045reached in 2021
- Change vs 2024
- −5.7%181 in 2025, from 192
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.
Amal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- أمل in Arabic — transliteration
- Emel in Turkish — related form
- Amel in Bosnian / French-Arabic usage — spelling variant
- Amaal in English (variant spelling) — spelling variant
- امل in Urdu — transliteration
- Amal in Indonesian / Malay — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, Texas, California.
Amals among us
people named Amal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,880 born in 2025 was named Amal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Merissa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Merissa climbed just as high around 1995, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Merissa's path sketches the road Amal is walking now.
Amal 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
Where Amal is headed
Amal should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Amal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters, spelled the way it sounds — most English speakers get it right on the first read without a spelling lesson.
- A word-name with a clear, undisputed meaning in Arabic: hope.
- Works across Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, French and English contexts with little or no adjustment.
- Long-established in Arabic naming, not a recent coinage, so it has a real record behind it.
- Short enough to need no nickname, but takes Ami or Mal if one is wanted.
- Two stress patterns circulate in the US — AM-al and uh-MAHL. Neither is wrong, but you will be correcting people occasionally, and siblings and teachers may not land on the same one.
- The same spelling is a boy's name in South Asian and Indonesian traditions. In most American settings Amal reads as a girl's name, but not universally, and forms that ask for a title or a gender box may guess.
- It can be misheard as Amy, Amelia or Amahl over the phone, which means spelling it out now and then.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Amal
Feminine · Arabic roots · #1241 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,100 people named Amal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amal in 2025?
- Amal ranks #1241 among US girl names in 2025, with 181 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amal?
- About 1 in every 8,880 US girls born in 2025 was named Amal — 181 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amal with classmates?
- Amal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amethyst#1241 · Anderson#1241 · Cooper#1241 · Eliette#1241 · Jana#1241 · Everley#1241 · Emmaline#1235 · Silvia#1235
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amal and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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