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Rakel

Girls' name

Form of Rachel

Rakel has been given to 305 babies in the U.S. since 1979. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2002, with 15 recorded.

Babies named Rakel, 2019

1 in 496,000

Rakel over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Rakel: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Rachel

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Rakel means

Rakel is a form of Rachel.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Rakel is used in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Rakel → Rachel. The family’s meaning is “ewe”, recorded in English with the source elements rāḫēl.

Origin, language, and formation

Rakel is used in Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Rachel.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 305 girls were recorded with the name Rakel between 1979 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 15 in 2002; its best national rank was #7,134 in 1999.

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 Rakel?

Rakel had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 496,000
7 of 3,472,229 births
Among girls only
1 in 240,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
343,825 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Rakel sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2019 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 343,825 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Rakel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Rakels were born

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

Median birth year
2002
About 23 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
35.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
74.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
305
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 35.1% of all recorded uses (107).

Is Rakel 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 2002 (15)
Years since peak
23
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
62.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#7,134
1999

Spellings of Rakel

Rakel is not the most common spelling — Rachel is, with 48.2% against Rakel's 0.03%.

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 Rakel is used

Across 1910–2025, Rakel was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 3,202,555 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Rakel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Rakel around the world

Where Rakel 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.

  • France
    1981–2022
    #5,720
    in 2022
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #121
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    2011–2011
    #840
    in 2011

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Rakel by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#7,134
1999
Peak year
2002
15 that year
First recorded
1979
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
305
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Rakel

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

RakebRakshaRakiaRakiyahRakiyaRakhiRakaylaRakishaMykelRakyaRakeyaRakiahRakeshaMikelRakellRakyahRakitaRakeishaRakhiaRakiraMarkelMakelRakheeRakyia

Sibling names for Rakel

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 Rakel

Top names of 2002, Rakel's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 1999Girls' names starting with RIcelandic Girl Names