Uriel
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my light".
Name Census estimates that about 20,195 living Americans carry the first name Uriel. It sits at #461 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (98.5% of registrations). The average person named Uriel today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Uriel births was 2008 (796 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Uriel. 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 Uriel with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Uriel is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 307 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
20K
~ 1 in 16,972 Americans
Peak year
2008
796 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#461
Tracked since 1913
Census
Uriel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 19,853 people with the first name Uriel, which placed it at #1,610 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
#1,610
National first-name rank
People counted
20K
19,853 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
91.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Uriel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Uriel is Hispanic at 91.3%. The next largest groups are White (4.1%) and Black (3.3%). 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 Uriel 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 Uriel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino91.3% · 18,117
- White4.1% · 818
- Black or African American3.3% · 663
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.7% · 133
- Two or more races0.5% · 93
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 29
Gender
Gender distribution for Uriel
Uriel leans heavily male at 98.5% of total registrations, but 307 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Uriel as a male name
- Ranked #461 in 2024
- 670 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2008 (789 births)
Uriel as a female name
- Ranked #8,889 in 2024
- 12 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2017 (23 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Uriel leans strongly male. 19,578 people counted with this name were male (98.6%), compared with 277 female bearers (1.4%).
Popularity
Uriel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Uriel from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 6,507 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Uriel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Uriel 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 Uriel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Uriels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. California, Texas, Illinois recorded the most babies named Uriel, while Louisiana, Idaho, Kentucky recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 501 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Uriel
The name Uriel is of Hebrew origin, derived from the biblical phrase "Ur-i El" which means "fire of God" or "light of God." It is a name associated with the archangel Uriel, who is mentioned in various religious and mystical texts.
Uriel is first referenced in the non-canonical Biblical apocryphal Book of Enoch, written in the 3rd century BC. In this text, Uriel is described as one of the leading archangels responsible for providing wisdom and knowledge to humankind. He is also mentioned in other apocryphal texts such as the Book of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Peter.
In the Kabbalah, a school of Jewish mysticism, Uriel is considered one of the four archangels, along with Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. He is associated with the element of earth and is believed to be the angel of repentance and divine wisdom.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Uriel being used for a person is in the 4th century AD. Uriel of Alexandria was a Christian monk and theologian who lived in the Egyptian desert during this time period.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Uriel. Uriel da Costa (1585-1640) was a Portuguese philosopher and writer who was excommunicated for his controversial views on Judaism. Uriel Weinreich (1926-1967) was a linguist and Yiddish scholar who made significant contributions to the study of language contact and language shift.
Other famous individuals named Uriel include Uriel Acosta (c. 1590-1647), a Jewish philosopher and writer from Portugal; Uriel Birnbaum (1894-1956), a Polish-Israeli writer and activist; and Uriel Quesada (1886-1972), a Costa Rican writer and diplomat.
In literature, the name Uriel has been used in works such as John Milton's Paradise Lost, where Uriel is depicted as the archangel who guards the sun. The name has also appeared in various fantasy and science fiction works, often associated with angelic or celestial beings.
People
Uriel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Uriel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with U
Other first names starting with U with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Uriel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Uriel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 20,195 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Uriel 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 16,972 US residents.
Is Uriel a common name?
We classify Uriel as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 20,671 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Uriel most popular?
The single biggest year for Uriel was 2008, when 796 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Uriel is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Uriel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 19,853 people with the name Uriel, or 6.57 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,610 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 Uriel 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 Uriel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Uriel leans strongly male. 19,578 people counted with this name were male (98.6%), compared with 277 female bearers (1.4%). 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 Uriel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Uriel is Hispanic at 91.3%. The next largest groups are White (4.1%) and Black (3.3%). 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 Uriel most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Uriel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 91.3% (18,117 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 Uriel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Uriel a male name?
Yes, 98.5% of people registered as Uriel 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 Uriel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Uriel 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 Uriel 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 are called Uriel?
You can see how many people have the name Uriel on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.