Ruel
Masculine · “friend of God”
Ruel is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,921 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Ruel means the friend of God, and it belongs to the man who was Moses's father-in-law — called Reuel in some passages of Exodus and Jethro in others, a doubling that has occupied commentators for two thousand years. It stood inside the American top six hundred and fifty in 1893, and it was J. R. R. Tolkien's middle name.
How old is the name Ruel?
Ruel first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Ruel alive today was born around 1940, making them about 85 years old. About 800 people named Ruel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ruel most popular?
Ruel peaked in 1893, reaching #650 nationally. Today it ranks #6143, 5,493 places below that high. See the whole 1893 chart.
Where it comes from
From Re'u'el to Ruel
The story of Ruel
Reuel appears in Genesis as a son of Esau and in Exodus as the Midianite priest whose daughter Zipporah marries Moses. English-speaking Protestants took up the minor Old Testament names in quantity after the Reformation, and American usage was strongest in the nineteenth century — Ruel, Hiram, Amos, Ezra, Obadiah and Eber all peak in the same decades. The name has a distinguished modern bearer: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, whose family used Reuel across generations, signed himself J. R. R. and gave the name to his own son.
Meaning
friend of God
Hebrew Re'u'el joins re'a, 'friend, companion', to el, 'God'. The structure is the standard Semitic theophoric one, the same as Michael, Daniel and Nathaniel. The derivation is settled. The interpretive difficulty is not the etymology but the text: Exodus names Moses's father-in-law Reuel in chapter 2 and Jethro in chapter 3, and Numbers calls him Hobab, which has generated a great deal of scholarship and no consensus.
How the name formed
- Re'u'el
- Reuel
- Ruel
Related forms: Reuel · Ruel · Ruel
Pronouncing Ruel
ROO-el
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the vowels sounded separately. A one-syllable ROOL is also heard in American use. The Hebrew original has three syllables, reh-oo-EL.
Nicknames for Ruel
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
- 1882
- Most boys named
- 192447 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #650reached in 1893
- Change vs 2022
- +40.0%14 in 2025, from 10
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.
Ruel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Reuel in Hebrew — spelling variant
- Ruel in Spanish — same name
- Ruel in Filipino — same name
Ruels among us
people named Ruel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 122,005 born in 2025 was named Ruel
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Ruel 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
Ruel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ruel 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 settled, warm and expressible in three words.
- It is short, easy to spell and unusual without being difficult.
- It has a genuine biblical bearer and a distinguished modern one.
- Ruel and Reuel both circulate as spellings of the same name.
- One- and two-syllable pronunciations both occur in American use.
- It is very close to Rule and Rael in sound.
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Ruel
Masculine · #6143 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ruels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Ruel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ruel in 2025?
- Ruel ranks #6143 among US boy names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ruel?
- About 1 in every 122,005 US boys born in 2025 was named Ruel — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ruel with classmates?
- Ruel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ruel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Cornell#6143 · Vasco#6143 · Kemper#6143 · Yates#6143 · Roark#6143 · Raja#6143 · Marquan#6143 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ruel? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ruel and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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