Ruchel
A feminine name of Yiddish origin signifying a small green plant.
Name Census estimates that about 376 living Americans carry the first name Ruchel. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Ruchel today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ruchel births was 2022 (20 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ruchel. 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 Ruchel with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
376
~ 1 in 911,581 Americans
Peak year
2022
20 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,330
Tracked since 1974
Census
Ruchel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 257 people with the first name Ruchel, which placed it at #32,623 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
#32,623
National first-name rank
People counted
257
257 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
92.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ruchel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ruchel is White at 92.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (3.1%) and Black (1.9%). 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 Ruchel 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 Ruchel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White92.6% · 238
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.1% · 8
- Black or African American1.9% · 5
- Two or more races1.6% · 4
- Hispanic or Latino0.8% · 2
Popularity
Ruchel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ruchel from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 126 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ruchel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ruchel 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 Ruchel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ruchels live
Origin
Meaning and history of Ruchel
The name Ruchel is a feminine Hebrew name derived from the Biblical Hebrew name Rachel, which means "ewe" or "female sheep". It is a variant spelling of the more common Rachel, likely originating from Yiddish-speaking Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.
The name Rachel has its roots in the Hebrew Bible, where it is the name of the beloved wife of the patriarch Jacob and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel is described as being beautiful and is considered one of the four matriarchs in Judaism.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Ruchel can be found in the Yiddish literature of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in works by writers from Poland and Lithuania. It was a popular name among Ashkenazi Jewish communities during this period.
Notable historical figures named Ruchel include Ruchel Leizerovitch, a 19th-century Ukrainian-born Hebrew poet and author (1825-1903). Another is Ruchel Rokhel, a 17th-century Ukrainian-born Jewish poet and writer (1636-1701), who is considered one of the earliest known female writers in Yiddish literature.
In the 18th century, Ruchel Hirschfeld (1745-1823) was a German-born Jewish educator and author, known for her contributions to the field of Jewish education and her writings on Jewish ethics and morality.
Another historical figure is Ruchel Kaminsky (1854-1924), a Russian-born Jewish writer and activist who was involved in the early Zionist movement and advocated for women's rights and education.
Ruchel Vainstein (1905-1976) was a Soviet-born Yiddish writer and journalist who wrote extensively about the experiences of Jewish people during World War II and the Holocaust.
While the name Ruchel is not as common today as its parent name Rachel, it holds a rich history within Jewish culture and literature, particularly in Eastern European communities where Yiddish was widely spoken.
People
Ruchel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ruchel 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
Ruchel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ruchel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 376 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ruchel 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 911,581 US residents.
Is Ruchel a common name?
We classify Ruchel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 385 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ruchel most popular?
The single biggest year for Ruchel was 2022, when 20 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ruchel is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ruchel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 257 people with the name Ruchel, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #32,623 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 Ruchel 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 Ruchel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ruchel leans strongly female. 256 people counted with this name were female (97.0%), compared with 8 male bearers (3.0%). 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 Ruchel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ruchel is White at 92.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (3.1%) and Black (1.9%). 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 Ruchel most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ruchel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 92.6% (238 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 Ruchel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ruchel a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Ruchel 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 Ruchel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ruchel 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 Ruchel 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 the name Ruchel?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Ruchel, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.