Yisroel
Masculine · Hebrew roots · “strives with God" or "God rules”
Yisroel is the Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation of the name Israel — the same name written out the way it is actually said in Yiddish-speaking communities. It carries one of the oldest stories in the Hebrew Bible, and in the mouth it moves from a soft hiss to a full open ending: yis-ROH-el. Its US record is concentrated in New York and New Jersey, and it has been gaining ground rather than fading.
How old is the name Yisroel?
Yisroel first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Yisroel alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 6,700 people named Yisroel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yisroel most popular?
Yisroel peaked in 2025, reaching #824 nationally. Today it ranks #824, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yisra'el (Hebrew) to Yisroel
The story of Yisroel
The name is Hebrew, and it enters the record in Genesis, where it becomes both a man's name and the name of a people. Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible rendered it Israēl, Latin kept it, and English inherited Israel — the form most Americans read first. Yisroel is the same name in Ashkenazi pronunciation, the vowel shifted the way Yiddish shifted it across Central and Eastern Europe, and spelled in Latin letters to preserve that sound rather than the biblical-English one. That spelling choice is why it clusters where Yiddish-speaking and Orthodox communities settled in the United States.
Meaningscholars disagree
"strives with God" or "God rules"
The Book of Genesis supplies the first reading itself: Jacob is renamed after wrestling through the night, "for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Hebraists have long read the name's grammar differently, with El (God) as the subject rather than the object, giving "God rules" or "God contends." A third, older folk reading takes sar (prince) as the first element, hence "prince of God." All three have been in circulation for centuries.
How the name formed
- Yisra'elHebrew
- IsraēlGreek
- IsraelLatin and English
- YisroelYiddish / Ashkenazi
Related forms: Yisrael · Israel · Israel · Srulik · Isra'il · Israil
Pronouncing Yisroel
yis-ROH-el
Some families stress the first syllable instead, closer to YIS-royl, which is the older Yiddish pattern. Modern Israeli Hebrew says yis-rah-EL for the same name spelled Yisrael.
Nicknames for Yisroel
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
- 1950
- Most boys named
- 2025300 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #824reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +22.0%300 in 2025, from 246
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.
Yisroel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yisrael in Hebrew (modern Israeli) — same name
- Israel in English — same name
- Israel in Spanish — same name
- Srulik in Yiddish — related form
- Isra'il in Arabic — same name
- Israil in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, New Jersey, California.
Yisroels among us
people named Yisroel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 5,694 born in 2025 was named Yisroel
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 Trevion test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yisroel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Trevion climbed just as high around 2002, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Trevion's path sketches the road Yisroel is walking now.
Yisroel 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 Yisroel is headed
Yisroel 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.
Yisroel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yisroel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Immediately recognizable as Israel to anyone who reads the Bible, while the spelling tells people exactly how the family says it.
- Long-established short forms already in real use — Sruly, Srulik, Izzy — so nothing has to be invented.
- An unbroken written record going back to the Hebrew Bible, and current use in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, Spanish and Arabic.
- Rising rather than receding in US records, and concentrated enough that a child is unlikely to share it in a classroom.
- The spelling competes with Yisrael, Yisroel and plain Israel, and mail, forms and teachers will sometimes default to whichever they saw last. Worth deciding once and being consistent.
- Outside Jewish communities, most readers will see the country before the name, which can mean repeated small conversations about it over a lifetime.
- It marks a specific tradition and pronunciation. That is precisely the point for many families choosing it, but it is worth knowing the name announces something before the child does.
- Non-speakers will often say it as English Israel on first sight. The correction is a short one, and the short forms give him an easy fallback.
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Yisroel
Masculine · Hebrew roots · #824 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yisroels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,700 people named Yisroel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Yisroel in 2025?
- Yisroel ranks #824 among US boy names in 2025, with 300 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yisroel?
- About 1 in every 5,694 US boys born in 2025 was named Yisroel — 300 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yisroel with classmates?
- Yisroel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yisroel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yisroel? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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