Ismail
Ismail is a boy's name that peaked in 2025, when it was the 1,064th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,064th. About 3,900 Ismails are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 13.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Ismail
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 4,022
- Estimated living today
- 3,900
- Median age today
- 13
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 1,064th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,064th
- First recorded
- 1962
How old the living Ismails are
born that year still alive today
Of the 4,022 babies given the name since 1962, about 3,900 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 2,400 of them are children and 0 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 Arabic
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Ismails
- Ismail Haniyeh (1962–2024)Hamas leader
- Ismail Kadare (1936–2024)Albanian writer
- Ismail I (1487–1524)founder and first shah of Safavid Iran
- Ismail Omar Guelleh (born 1947)President of Djibouti since 1999
- Ismail al-Faruqi (1921–1986)Palestinian-American Muslim philosopher and scholar
- Isma'il Pasha (1831–1895)Khedive of Egypt from 1863 to 1879
- Ismail Kemal (1844–1919)Prime Minister of Albania
- Ismail II (1533–1577)Safavid Shah of Iran from 1576 to 1577
People named Ismail with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Ismail is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Ismail is most concentrated in Minnesota (4.3×), New York (3.1×), New Jersey (2.4×), Virginia (2.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Ismail peaked:
Ismail elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Ismail +4 spellings | 11,780 | 127th |
| England and Wales boys | Ismail +1 spelling | 4,879 | 225th |
| Belgium boys | Ismail +1 spelling | 1,695 | 216th |
| Italy boys | Ismail | 1,614 | — |
| Norway boys | Ismail | 857 | 217th |
| Switzerland boys | Ismail +1 spelling | 380 | 373rd |
| Scotland boys | Ismail | 116 | 316th |
| Poland boys | Ismail | 62 birth registrations | 357th |
| Ireland boys | Ismail | 39 | 472nd |
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.
Ismail: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Ismail | 245 | 0.020% | 338th |
| German boys | Switzerland | Ismaïl | 4 | 0.000% | 930th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Ismail | 71 | 0.016% | 226th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Ismaïl | 52 | 0.012% | 385th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Ismail | 8 | 0.012% | 115th |
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, Ismail is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.04% of children were given it – 44 of them.
Ismail: rank by region
In 2025, Ismail was given 5 times or more in 4 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Ismail | 246 | 24 |
| Wallonia | Ismail | 394 | 6 |
| Brussels | Ismail | 79 | 13 |
| Brussels | Ismaïl | 153 | 8 |
In 2024, Ismail was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wielkopolskie | Ismail | 252 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Ismail appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (Ismail, 79th), Province of Antwerp (Ismail, 120th) and Brussels-Capital Region (Ismaïl, 153rd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – 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.
Ismail by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 59 | 233rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Ismail 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 | Ismail | 1,638 | 1,989 |
| Finland boys | Ismail | 259 | 459 |
| Finland girls | Ismail | — | 109 |
| the Netherlands girls | Ismail | — | 44 |
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 Ismail lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 6,892 men called Ismail 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | Ismail | 56 | 1.279 | 136 |
| Ceuta | Ismail | 53 | 1.258 | 141 |
| Almería | Ismail | 384 | 0.976 | 143 |
| Tarragona | Ismail | 353 | 0.805 | 181 |
| Girona | Ismail | 292 | 0.701 | 184 |
| Lleida | Ismail | 145 | 0.616 | 206 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Ismail 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.