Ismael
A masculine name of Semitic origin meaning "God has listened".
Name Census estimates that about 40,133 living Americans carry the first name Ismael. It sits at #234 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Ismael today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ismael births was 2024 (1,532 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ismael. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Ismael with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Ismael is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 73 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
40K
~ 1 in 8,540 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,532 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#234
Tracked since 1903
Census
Ismael in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 51,337 people with the first name Ismael, which placed it at #881 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#881
National first-name rank
People counted
51K
51,337 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
17.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
92.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ismael
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ismael is Hispanic at 92.9%. The next largest groups are White (2.6%) and Black (2.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Ismael described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Ismael at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino92.9% · 47,674
- White2.6% · 1,359
- Black or African American2.5% · 1,307
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.4% · 744
- Two or more races0.3% · 165
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 88
Gender
Gender distribution for Ismael
Out of the 42,973 babies given the name Ismael since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Ismael as a male name
- Ranked #234 in 2024
- 1,532 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,532 births)
Ismael as a female name
- Ranked #17,476 in 2005
- 5 female births in 2005
- Peak: 1994 (8 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ismael appears almost entirely male. Of the 51,341 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Ismael: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ismael from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 8,932 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Ismael remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ismael by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Ismael during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ismaels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 40 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Ismael, while Mississippi, Rhode Island, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,013 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ismael
The name Ismael has its origins in the Hebrew language, deriving from the Biblical name Yishmael, which translates to "God will hear" or "God has hearkened." It is rooted in the ancient Semitic languages of the Middle East and is first mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the name of the eldest son of the patriarch Abraham.
Ismael's story is recounted in the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the Islamic tradition, he is considered a prophet and an ancestor of the Arabs through his son Kedar. The name gained widespread usage among Arabic-speaking populations after the rise of Islam in the 7th century.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Ismael was Ismail I, the Shah of Persia from 1501 to 1524, who founded the Safavid dynasty and established Shia Islam as the state religion of Persia. Another notable figure was Ismail Pasha, an Ottoman statesman and diplomat who served as the Prime Minister of Egypt from 1863 to 1867.
In the realm of literature, Ismaël is a character in Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby Dick," portrayed as a mysterious and enigmatic figure. The name also appears in the works of French writer Albert Camus, notably in his 1942 novel "The Stranger."
Other historical figures bearing the name Ismael include Ismail al-Bukhari (810-870), a renowned Islamic scholar and author of the hadith collection "Sahih al-Bukhari," and Ismail Ibn Kathir (1301-1373), a prominent Muslim scholar and historian from Damascus who wrote the influential work "Al-Bidayah wa'l-Nihayah" (The Beginning and the End).
Ismail Kadare (born 1936) is a renowned Albanian novelist and poet, known for his works exploring the complexities of life under totalitarian regimes. He was awarded the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005 for his literary achievements.
People
Ismael + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ismael as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ismael: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ismael?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 40,133 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ismael going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 8,540 US residents.
Is Ismael a common name?
We classify Ismael as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 42,973 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ismael most popular?
The single biggest year for Ismael was 2024, when 1,532 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ismael is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ismael in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 51,337 people with the name Ismael, or 17.00 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #881 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Ismael in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Ismael?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ismael appears almost entirely male. Of the 51,341 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Ismael?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ismael is Hispanic at 92.9%. The next largest groups are White (2.6%) and Black (2.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Ismael most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Ismael in the 2020 Census, accounting for 92.9% (47,674 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Ismael in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ismael a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Ismael in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Ismael still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ismael in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Ismael can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Ismael?
Find out how many people have the name Ismael on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.