Ishmael — #1499 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Ishmael

The Social Security Administration has registered 6,671 babies named Ishmael between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Ishmael currently holds the #1499 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 2017, when 158 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Ishmael performed strongest in the 2010s, accumulating 1,355 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Ishmael shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 654 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Florida. In total, SSA state-level files list Ishmael in 25 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Ishmael in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 6,671 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.