Rachel is a feminine given name of Hebrew origin, meaning "ewe" or "female sheep". The name Rachel is derived from the Hebrew word רחל, which means "sheep".
In the Bible, Rachel was one of the two wives of Jacob and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was also the favorite wife of Jacob and was deeply loved by him.
The name Rachel has been popular throughout history and has been used by many notable figures. For example, Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose groundbreaking book "Silent Spring" sparked the environmental movement in the 1960s. Rachel Whiteread is a British contemporary artist who won the Turner Prize in 1993.
Today, Rachel remains a popular name for girls around the world. It has been consistently ranked among the top 1,000 names for girls in the United States since the early 20th century. In France, Rachel was the fourth most popular girl's name in the year 2000.
Rachel's popularity as a name has varied greatly over the years, with periods of high frequency followed by significant declines. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw consistent but modest use of the name, with around 5-8 births per year from 1899 to 1923.
The 1930s marked a significant turning point, with Rachel's popularity surging in 1936 (17 births) and remaining consistently high throughout the decade. This trend continued into the 1940s, with peaks in 1941 (17 births) and 1942 (10 births). However, after 1945, Rachel's popularity began to decline steadily.
The 1950s and 1960s saw further decreases in the number of Rachel births, with some years having fewer than 10 births. This trend continued into the 1970s, although there were occasional peaks, such as in 1971 (32 births) and 1974 (35 births).
Rachel's popularity began to rise again in the late 1970s, reaching a peak in the early 1980s. The highest recorded number of Rachel births was in 1984, with 83 births. This period of high popularity lasted until the mid-1990s, after which there was another significant decline.
Since the late 1990s, Rachel's popularity has been consistently low, with fewer than 25 births per year. The most recent data shows that in 2018, there were only 5 births named Rachel. Overall, from 1899 to 2018, there have been a total of 1791 births named Rachel.