Abel
Abel is a boy's name that peaked in 2015, when it was the 124th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 231st. About 61,000 Abels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Abel boys named Abel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 66,198
- Estimated living today
- 61,000
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2015
- Best rank
- 124th
- Rank in 2025
- 231st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 161 / 66,037
How old the living Abels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 66,198 babies given the name since 1880, about 61,000 are alive — 92 in every hundred. Roughly 36,000 of them are children and 2,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2012 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Middle English Abel, from Old English Ābel, from Latin Abel, from Ancient Greek Ἅβελ, from Biblical Hebrew הֶבֶל (“Abel”), possibly from the homonymous word הֶבֶל (“breath, vapor; vanity”) or from Akkadian 𒌉𒍑 (“son”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Abels
- Abel Tasman (1603–1659)Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant
- Abel Gance (1889–1981)French film director and producer, writer and actor
- Abel Hernández (born 1990)Uruguayan association football player
- Abel of Denmark (1218–1252)King of Denmark
- Abel Aguilar (born 1985)Colombian association football player
- Abel Pacheco (born 1933)President of Costa Rica
- Abel Xavier (born 1972)Portuguese-Mozambican association football player
- Abel Azcona (born 1988)Spanish writer and performance artist
People named Abel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Abel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Abel is most concentrated in New Mexico (3.5×), Arizona (3.0×), Texas (3.0×), Nevada (3.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2015
The most popular boys’ names the year Abel peaked:
Abel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Abel | 29,395 | 108th |
| England and Wales boys | Abel | 3,660 | 153rd |
| Belgium boys | Abel | 1,060 | 129th |
| Norway boys | Abel | 944 | 82nd |
| Spain boys | Abel | 397 | 98th |
| Switzerland boys | Abel +1 spelling | 312 | 326th |
| Scotland boys | Abel | 206 | 168th |
| France girls | Abel | 170 | 656th |
| Ireland boys | Abel | 164 | 329th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Abel | 132 | 147th |
| Poland boys | Abel | 23 birth registrations | 487th |
| England and Wales girls | Abel | 3 | 5,581st |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Abel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Abel | 103 | 0.008% | 498th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Ábel | 10 | 0.001% | 1,137th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Abel | 193 | 0.044% | 128th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Abel | 5 | 0.008% | 188th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Abel | 1 | 0.027% | 13th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Abel is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.06% of children were given it – 64 of them.
Abel: rank by region
In 2025, Abel was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Abel | 154 | 39 |
| Wallonia | Abel | 191 | 15 |
| Brussels | Abel | 265 | 5 |
In 2013, Abel was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Abel | 10 | 1 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Abel appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (106th), Province of Limburg (109th), Province of West Flanders (138th), Province of Liège (147th), Province of Flemish Brabant (177th), Province of Antwerp (251st) and Brussels-Capital Region (265th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Abel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 15 | 447th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Abel among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Abel | 3,278 | 4,615 |
| Finland boys | Abel | 171 | 364 |
| the Netherlands girls | Abel | 8 | 9 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Abel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 25,208 men called Abel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Badajoz | Abel | 829 | 2.526 | 78 |
| Soria | Abel | 102 | 2.225 | 82 |
| Lugo | Abel | 330 | 2.086 | 73 |
| Asturias | Abel | 966 | 1.994 | 87 |
| León | Abel | 388 | 1.779 | 95 |
| Cáceres | Abel | 332 | 1.727 | 101 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Abel against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.