Ismael
Masculine · Hebrew roots · “God hears”
Ismael is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 44,216 boys against 73 girls since 1880.
Ismael is the Spanish, Portuguese and French form of a name written down in Hebrew thousands of years ago, and it has been spoken continuously ever since — in Genesis, in the Quran, in parish registers across Spain and Latin America. It has been on the US records for well over a century without ever disappearing. Three syllables, ending on the stressed EL, so it carries clearly across a room.
How old is the name Ismael?
Ismael first appears in US birth records in 1903 — 122 years ago. The typical Ismael alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 41,000 people named Ismael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ismael most popular?
Ismael peaked in 2024, reaching #234 nationally. Today it ranks #263, 29 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Ismael appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Yishmaʿel (Hebrew) to Ismael
The story of Ismael
The name begins in Hebrew as Yishmaʿel and appears in the book of Genesis as the son of Abraham and Hagar. The Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible rendered it Ismaēl, dropping the sh sound, and Latin passed that form on to Spanish, Portuguese and French as Ismael — while English, translating from Hebrew directly, kept Ishmael. In Arabic the same name is Ismāʿīl, honored in the Quran as a prophet and linked to Mecca. Spanish and Portuguese speakers carried Ismael to the Americas, which is how this particular spelling reached the United States and settled here.
Meaning
God hears
From Hebrew Yishmaʿel, combining the verb shamaʿ, "to hear", with El, "God" — often given as "God will hear" or "God hearkens".
How the name formed
- YishmaʿelHebrew
- IsmaēlGreek
- IsmaelLatin
- IsmaelSpanish, Portuguese, French
Related forms: Ismāʿīl · Ishmael · İsmail · Esmail · Ismaele · Yishmaʿel
Pronouncing Ismael
ees-mah-EL
That is the Spanish pronunciation, with the stress on the last syllable. English speakers often say IZ-may-el or IZ-mee-el, closer to the Ishmael spelling. Both are heard in the US, and families usually pick one and gently correct the other.
Nicknames for Ismael
High
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
- 1903
- Most boys named
- 20231,425 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #234reached in 2024
- Change vs 2023
- −8.3%1,307 in 2025, from 1,425
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.
Ismael in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ismāʿīl in Arabic — transliteration
- Ishmael in English — same name
- İsmail in Turkish — same name
- Esmail in Persian — same name
- Ismaele in Italian — same name
- Yishmaʿel in Hebrew — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Arizona.
Ismaels among us
people named Ismael are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,307 born in 2025 was named Ismael
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 Winston test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ismael's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Winston climbed just as high around 1941, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Winston's path sketches the road Ismael is walking now.
Ismael is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Ismael is headed
Ismael looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 29% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Ismael beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ismael in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged in Spanish, Portuguese and French, with close relatives in Arabic, Turkish and Persian — a name that crosses borders without needing a new spelling.
- A documented record stretching from ancient Hebrew scripture to this year's kindergartens, and an unbroken run on US records for more than a century.
- Has a ready-made everyday short form, Isma, already in wide use among Spanish speakers.
- Spelled the way it sounds in Spanish: no silent letters, no doubled consonants.
- Three spellings of the same name circulate in the US — Ismael, Ismail and Ishmael — so expect to spell it out often, and to have mail arrive in the wrong version.
- The pronunciation splits along language lines: ees-mah-EL in Spanish, IZ-may-el in English. Worth deciding early which one you will ask teachers and doctors to use, because both are defensible.
- In English, the name carries an echo of Melville's narrator and of the biblical figure sent away from his father's household — a rich association for some readers, a melancholy one for others.
- A child with this name will likely be the only one in the class, which means no surname initial needed, but also a lifetime of being the first Ismael some people have met.
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What they receive
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Ismael
Masculine · Hebrew roots · #263 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ismaels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 41,000 people named Ismael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ismael in 2025?
- Ismael ranks #263 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,307 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ismael?
- About 1 in every 1,307 US boys born in 2025 was named Ismael — 1,307 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ismael with classmates?
- Ismael will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ismael
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kayson#264 · Paul#262 · Brandon#261 · Bodhi#265 · Omar#260 · Bowen#266 · Saint#267 · Xander#259
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ismael? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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