Gael
Gael was given to 3,860 boys in 2025, #86 among boys’ names; 49,752 Americans have been recorded with it since 1919 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 49,100 Americans named Gael and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 8 years old and half are between 4 and 13.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Gael by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Gael mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Gael is “a male given name.”
Borrowed from Irish Gael, alt. Gaol, from earlier Gaoidheal, cognate with Scottish Gaelic Gàidheal and Manx Gael, from Middle Irish Gaídel, from Old Irish Goídel (“Irishman”), a loanword from Old Welsh Guoidel (“wild man, warrior”) (also recorded as a personal name in the Book of Llandaff), from Proto-Brythonic *Guɨðel (“savage, woodsman”), from Proto-Celtic *weidelos (“savage, woodsman”), related to *weidus (“wild”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁- (“wood, wilderness”) (cf. Old English wāþ (“hunt”)). Doublet of Goidel. False cognate of English Gaul, Gallia. Medieval Irish traditions, including the Lebor Gabála Érenn, trace the origin of the Goídels to an eponymous ancestor, Goídel Glas, but this is no longer held to be the ultimate etymology of the word.
/ɡeɪ̯l/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Gael?
#86 among boys’ names, 2025
Gael rose from #220 in 2015 to #86 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 0.93 to 2.3 per 1,000.
3,879 babies in 2024, the peak
Gael peaked in 2024, when 3,879 babies were given it (3,872 boys, #89 among boys’ names). The 3,866 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 100% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 3,860 | #86 | 2.3 |
| 2024 | 3,872 | #89 | 2.2 |
| 2023 | 3,629 | #100 | 2.1 |
| 2022 | 3,509 | #104 | 2.0 |
| 2021 | 3,513 | #109 | 2.0 |
| 2020 | 3,262 | #112 | 1.9 |
| 2019 | 2,900 | #133 | 1.6 |
| 2018 | 2,931 | #132 | 1.6 |
| 2017 | 2,239 | #178 | 1.2 |
| 2016 | 2,248 | #178 | 1.2 |
Every recorded year (46)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1,783 | #220 | 0.93 |
| 2014 | 1,809 | #213 | 0.94 |
| 2013 | 2,307 | #177 | 1.2 |
| 2012 | 2,745 | #146 | 1.4 |
| 2011 | 690 | #410 | 0.36 |
| 2010 | 692 | #408 | 0.36 |
| 2009 | 1,003 | #319 | 0.51 |
| 2008 | 1,119 | #298 | 0.55 |
| 2007 | 1,168 | #296 | 0.56 |
| 2006 | 1,026 | #314 | 0.50 |
| 2005 | 1,102 | #297 | 0.55 |
| 2004 | 751 | #370 | 0.38 |
| 2003 | 443 | #526 | 0.22 |
| 2002 | 246 | #722 | 0.13 |
| 2001 | 47 | #2,186 | 0.02 |
| 2000 | 6 | #9,482 | under 0.01 |
| 1999 | 12 | #5,420 | 0.01 |
| 1998 | 11 | #5,587 | 0.01 |
| 1997 | 12 | #5,055 | 0.01 |
| 1996 | 10 | #5,669 | 0.01 |
| 1995 | 9 | #6,075 | under 0.01 |
| 1994 | 9 | #6,013 | under 0.01 |
| 1993 | 17 | #3,707 | 0.01 |
| 1992 | 17 | #3,653 | 0.01 |
| 1989 | 6 | #7,287 | under 0.01 |
| 1952 | 8 | #2,945 | under 0.01 |
| 1948 | 7 | #3,109 | under 0.01 |
| 1947 | 16 | #1,945 | 0.01 |
| 1946 | 7 | #2,998 | under 0.01 |
| 1939 | 7 | #2,945 | 0.01 |
| 1938 | 6 | #3,296 | 0.01 |
| 1936 | 5 | #3,731 | under 0.01 |
| 1930 | 5 | #4,209 | under 0.01 |
| 1926 | 5 | #4,443 | under 0.01 |
| 1921 | 5 | #4,579 | under 0.01 |
| 1919 | 5 | #4,403 | 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Gael a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 49,752 Americans recorded as Gael, 1% are girls and 99% boys. In 2025 it went to 6 girls and 3,860 boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Gael: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Gael, and how old are they?
49,100 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 49,752 Americans ever recorded as Gael. The median Gael alive today is 8 years old; half are between 4 and 13.
The 2020 Census counted 22,880 people named Gael (868 women and girls, 22,012 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 28,496 born in the U.S. The Census count is 20% below that prediction. Possible reasons: people who give a short form or another name to the Census, and a survival estimate that can run high.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Silent Generation | 1928-1945 | 71 |
| Baby Boomers | 1946-1964 | 238 |
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 46 |
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 70 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 11,000 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 37,700 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Gael born?
The states with the most babies named Gael are California, Texas and Florida, with 48% of its births recorded by state in 2025.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, boys | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 831 | #33 | 1.9× |
| Texas | 775 | #34 | 2.3× |
| Florida | 230 | #96 | 0.7× |
| New York | 176 | #99 | 0.7× |
| Illinois | 156 | #68 | 1.3× |
| New Jersey | 130 | #67 | 0.8× |
| Georgia | 117 | #97 | 0.8× |
| Arizona | 115 | #59 | 1.7× |
| North Carolina | 108 | #113 | 0.7× |
| Massachusetts | 82 | #87 | 0.4× |
Where Gael is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Gael is most over-represented in Texas: since 1919 it was given 2.3 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among boys’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Gael with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 2 names spelled alike, given to 49,866 babies since 1880, Gael is the most given (100% of them). In 2025 it was given to 3,866 of their 3,874 babies (100%), again the most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Gael
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Gael and names like it
- Compare Gael and GahelBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sGael peaked in 2024.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Gael since 1910.
- The top names of 2024The year the most babies were named Gael.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Gael alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with GMost given first.