Name Awesome

Hillel

#4,177 in 2025Boys' name

Praise

Hillel has been given to 1,453 babies in the U.S. since 1918. In 2025 it ranked #4,177 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2019, with 47 recorded.

Babies named Hillel, 2025

1 in 133,000

Hillel over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Hillel: meaning, origin, and history

Praise

Hebrew

What Hillel means

Hillel means “praise”.

Origin, language, and formation

Hillel is used in English and Italian. Its origins include Hebrew.

Hillel comes through Hebrew הִלֵּל.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Hillel is pronounced /hɪˈlɛl/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,453 boys were recorded with the name Hillel between 1918 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 47 in 2019; its best national rank was #2,314 in 1957.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #3,519 in 2020 to #4,177 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #4,016 in 2015 to #4,177 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Hillel?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 133,000
25 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 68,300
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#4,177
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
91,917 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Hillel sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 91,917 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Hillel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Hillels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Hillel was born before 2002 — so the typical Hillel is around 23 today.

Median birth year
2002
About 23 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
21.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
52.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
1,355
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 21.1% of all recorded uses (306).

Is Hillel rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
−882
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−658
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−161
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.96×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
53.2%
Peak was 2019 (47)
Years since peak
6
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,314
1957

Spellings of Hillel

Hillel is not the most common spelling — Miller is, with 62.9% against Hillel's 8.2%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Hillel is used

Across 1910–2025, Hillel was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 20,000 boys, against 1 in 46,471 across all states with data. It was least common in Maryland (1 in —).

05 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 20,000
  2. 2New Jersey1 in 50,000
  3. 3California1 in —
  4. 4Maryland1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Hillel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Hillel around the world

Where Hillel ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1997–2024
    #5,120
    in 2024
  • France
    1978–2025
    #2,200
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2013–2023
    #2,436
    in 2023

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Hillel by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#4,177
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 658
Best rank ever
#2,314
1957
Peak year
2019
47 that year
First recorded
1918
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,453
Count in 2025
25

Names similar to Hillel

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

HiltonHilaryHilarioHillaryHilmerHilbertHillHillardHillisKhalelHilliardHilleryKalelHildredHilmarHillmanHilmanHilalCalelHildingBetzalelHildaHileryBezalel

Sibling names for Hillel

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Hillel

Top names of 2019, Hillel's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 1957Boys' names starting with HHebrew Boy Names