Barak
Masculine · “Hebrew baraq”
Two Semitic roots differ by one consonant and are confused constantly. B-r-q is lightning. B-r-k is to kneel, and from kneeling, to bless. Hebrew Barak is lightning; Arabic and Swahili Baraka is blessing. They are not the same name and never were.
How old is the name Barak?
Barak first appears in US birth records in 1953 — 72 years ago. The typical Barak alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 900 people named Barak are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Barak most popular?
Barak peaked in 1970, reaching #2213 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 6,697 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From baraq to Barak
The story of Barak
The Song of Deborah in Judges 5 is one of the oldest passages in the Hebrew Bible, generally dated on linguistic grounds to well before the prose narrative that precedes it. In it Deborah is the judge and Barak the general, and the prose version makes a point of his conditional agreement: he will go only if she goes with him, and she tells him the honor of the victory will fall to a woman. It does, though not to her. The name has stayed in Jewish use continuously and was revived in modern Israel, where lightning is an ordinary and unremarkable name element. Its resemblance to the Arabic word for blessing is a coincidence of transliteration, and the two names have separate histories, separate scripts and separate meanings.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew baraq, lightning
Hebrew Barak, from baraq, lightning, is the commander who fights alongside the prophetess Deborah in Judges 4 and 5. The similar-looking Arabic barakah, blessing, comes from a different root, b-r-k, whose basic sense is to kneel, and which gives the Swahili baraka and the name Barack. In Roman letters the two are nearly identical and are routinely merged; in either original script they are plainly different words. The American peak is 1970.
How the name formed
- baraq
- Barak
Related forms: Barak · Barakah · Baraka
Pronouncing Barak
bah-RAHK
Two syllables, stress on the second. Hebrew says bah-RAHK with a hard final k. Barack, the Arabic-derived name, is said the same way in English but is a different word.
Nicknames for Barak
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
- 1953
- Most boys named
- 200629 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2213reached in 1970
- Change vs 2024
- −55.6%8 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.
Barak in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Barak in Hebrew — same name
- Barakah in Arabic — related form
- Baraka in Swahili — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York.
Baraks among us
people named Barak are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Barak
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Barak
- #8910
- Barak on the 2025 chart
- #914
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Barak went to 8 boys in 2025, but Barack is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 14, which makes it the 914th most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,996 places above the chart.
- Barak8
- Barack6
About 1 boy in 122,005 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 213,510 for Barak 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 Cleto test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Barak's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Cleto climbed just as high around 1933, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Cleto's path sketches the road Barak is walking now.
Barak 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
Barak beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Barak in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is a single vivid word.
- Five letters and two syllables, easy to say.
- It has a documented history of nearly three thousand years.
- It is one letter from a very well-known name of different origin.
- The two roots are constantly confused in reference books.
- The stressed ending is unusual for English disyllables.
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What they receive
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Barak
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Baraks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Barak are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Barak?
- Barak is the most-used spelling in US records — 8 of the 14 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Barack.
- How popular is the name Barak in 2025?
- Barak ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Barak?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Barak — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Barak with classmates?
- Barak will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Barak
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Barak? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Barak and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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