Joel
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "Yahweh is God".
Name Census estimates that about 240,202 living Americans carry the first name Joel. It sits at #219 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.1% of registrations). The average person named Joel today is around 41 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Joel births was 1985 (4,661 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Joel. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Joel with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Joel is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 2,588 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
240K
~ 1 in 1,427 Americans
Peak year
1985
4,661 babies that year
Average age
41
years old
2024 SSA rank
#219
Tracked since 1880
Census
Joel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 256,020 people with the first name Joel, which placed it at #211 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#211
National first-name rank
People counted
256K
256,020 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
84.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Joel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Joel is White at 53.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (34.1%) and Black (6.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Joel described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Joel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.8% · 137,796
- Hispanic or Latino34.1% · 87,373
- Black or African American6.2% · 15,870
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.3% · 8,549
- Two or more races2.0% · 5,225
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 1,207
Gender
Gender distribution for Joel
Out of the 280,584 babies given the name Joel since 1880, 99.1% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Joel as a male name
- Ranked #219 in 2024
- 1,633 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1985 (4,623 births)
Joel as a female name
- Ranked #12,690 in 2024
- 7 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1966 (103 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Joel appears almost entirely male. Of the 256,017 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Joel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Joel from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 43,981 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Joel by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Joel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Joels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Joel, while Vermont, Wyoming, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 5,397 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Joel
Joel is a masculine given name derived from the Hebrew name Yo'el. It dates back to ancient times, with its earliest known origins traced to the biblical Book of Joel in the Old Testament, thought to have been written around the 5th century BCE. The name means "Yahweh is God" or "Yahweh is the Lord" in Hebrew.
The Book of Joel is one of the Prophetic Books in the Hebrew Bible and tells the story of a prophet named Joel who lived in the ancient kingdom of Judah. The name gained popularity among Jewish communities and later spread to other cultures and regions.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Joel is found in the Bible, where Joel, the son of Samuel, is mentioned as one of the judges of Israel. He lived around the 11th century BCE.
In ancient Greek sources, the name appears as "Ioel" or "Ioēl." It was also adopted into Latin as "Ioel" or "Ioël."
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Joel. One of the most famous is the biblical prophet Joel, who authored the Book of Joel in the Old Testament. Another well-known figure is Joel, the brother of the biblical prophet Nahum, mentioned in the Book of Nahum.
During the Middle Ages, Joel was a popular name among European Jews. One notable bearer was Joel ben Isaac ha-Levi (c. 1070 – c. 1145), a Jewish philosopher and commentator from Spain.
In the Renaissance period, Joel Berman (c. 1561 – 1625) was a Dutch philosopher and theologian who wrote works on metaphysics and natural philosophy.
In the 19th century, Joel Chandler Harris (1848 – 1908) was an American writer best known for his Uncle Remus stories, which celebrated African-American folklore and culture.
Another notable figure was Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779 – 1851), an American statesman and scholar who served as the first United States Minister to Mexico and is credited with introducing the poinsettia plant to the United States.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Joel
People
Joel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Joel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Joel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Joel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 240,202 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Joel going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,427 US residents.
Is Joel a common name?
We classify Joel as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 280,584 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Joel most popular?
The single biggest year for Joel was 1985, when 4,661 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Joel is about 41 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Joel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 256,020 people with the name Joel, or 84.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #211 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Joel in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Joel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Joel appears almost entirely male. Of the 256,017 people counted with this name, 99.4% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Joel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Joel is White at 53.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (34.1%) and Black (6.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Joel most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Joel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.8% (137,796 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Joel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Joel a male name?
Yes, 99.1% of people registered as Joel in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Joel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Joel in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Joel can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Joel as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.