Raechal
A feminine name derived from the Hebrew name Rachel, meaning "ewe" or "lamb".
Name Census estimates that about 82 living Americans carry the first name Raechal. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Raechal today is around 36 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Raechal births was 1987 (9 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Raechal. 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.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Raechal. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
82
~ 1 in 4,179,931 Americans
Peak year
1987
9 babies that year
Average age
36
years old
2000 SSA rank
#16,954
Tracked since 1984
Census
Raechal in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 130 people with the first name Raechal, which placed it at #48,722 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
#48,722
National first-name rank
People counted
130
130 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
72.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Raechal
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raechal is White at 72.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (8.5%) and Two or More Races (6.9%). 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 Raechal 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 Raechal at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White72.3% · 94
- Hispanic or Latino8.5% · 11
- Two or more races6.9% · 9
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.2% · 8
- Black or African American3.8% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.3% · 3
Popularity
Raechal: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Raechal from the 1980s through to the 2000s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 41 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Raechal 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 Raechal during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Raechal
The name Raechal is a variant spelling of the Hebrew name Rachel, which means "ewe" or "female sheep." The name has its roots in the Hebrew Bible, where Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was revered for her beauty, loyalty, and unwavering faith.
The earliest recorded instances of the name Rachel can be traced back to the Old Testament, where she is mentioned in the Book of Genesis. In the biblical narrative, Rachel was the younger daughter of Laban and the favored wife of Jacob, who worked for her father for seven years to earn her hand in marriage.
Throughout history, the name Rachel has been borne by several notable figures, including Rachel of Lesbos, a lyric poet from ancient Greece who lived in the 6th century BCE. Another historical figure was Rachel Varnhagen, a German-Jewish writer and salonnière who was a prominent figure in the Romantic movement during the 19th century (1771-1833).
In the realm of literature, one of the most famous Rachels is the character of Rachel in William Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice." Rachel is also the name of a central character in the novel "Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne, published in the 18th century.
The name has been borne by several notable women throughout history, such as Rachel Carson, the American marine biologist and conservationist whose book "Silent Spring" sparked the modern environmental movement (1907-1964). Another prominent Rachel was Rachel Maddow, the American political commentator and television host known for her critically acclaimed show on MSNBC.
Other notable individuals with the name Raechal or its variants include Rachel Weisz, the British actress and recipient of an Academy Award and a BAFTA (born in 1970); Rachel Dolezal, the American civil rights activist known for her controversial racial identity claims (born in 1977); and Rachel Hunter, the New Zealand model and actress (born in 1969).
People
Raechal + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Raechal as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Raechal: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Raechal?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 82 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Raechal 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 4,179,931 US residents.
Is Raechal a common name?
We classify Raechal as "Very Rare". It ranks above 61.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 86 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Raechal most popular?
The single biggest year for Raechal was 1987, when 9 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Raechal is about 36 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Raechal in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 130 people with the name Raechal, or 0.04 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #48,722 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 Raechal 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 Raechal?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Raechal appears almost entirely female. Of the 128 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Raechal?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Raechal is White at 72.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (8.5%) and Two or More Races (6.9%). 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 Raechal most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Raechal in the 2020 Census, accounting for 72.3% (94 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 Raechal in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Raechal a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Raechal in the SSA data are female. 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 Raechal still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Raechal 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 Raechal 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 have Raechal as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.