Ismail is the Arabic form of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, whose name is explained in Genesis as "God will hear" or "God hears". In Islam Ismail is a prophet and the ancestor of the Arabs, which makes the name common from Morocco to Indonesia. In the United States Ismail has climbed from number 1501 in 2019 to number 1065 in 2025, its best rank to date.