Saul
- Pronunciation
- [Sa-al]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Longed For
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Saul
Saul descends from the Hebrew Sha'ul meaning "asked for" or "longed for." The biblical Saul is the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel (c. 1020–1010 BCE) — the iconic Israelite warrior-king who was anointed by the prophet Samuel and was the predecessor of David. The biblical Saul is also a key figure in the Christian New Testament — Saul of Tarsus was the original Hebrew name of Saint Paul the Apostle (Acts 9), who was renamed Paul after his iconic conversion experience on the road to Damascus.
Notable bearers include the iconic American novelist Saul Bellow (1915–2005, the iconic American Nobel Prize-winning author of The Adventures of Augie March 1953 and Herzog 1964 — widely considered one of the greatest figures of 20th-century American literature; he won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature); the iconic American filmmaker Saul Zaentz; the iconic AMC TV character Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad 2008–2013 and Better Call Saul 2015–2022 (played by Bob Odenkirk); and the contemporary American basketball player Saul Mooneyham.
Saul has been continuously used in American Jewish-American, Spanish-American, and Christian-American naming for over a century. The name's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Spanish-American naming, Jewish-American naming, and the strong Saul Goodman Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul contemporary cultural anchor. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-Old Testament-Jewish-Christian-foundational pedigree combined with one firm syllable — the in-built first-king-of-Israel religious anchor, the strong Saul Bellow American literary cultural anchor and Saul Goodman TV cultural anchor, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-biblical and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Sauly (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Sol each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Saul and Sául (Spanish, with accent) have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Saúl (Spanish/Portuguese, with accent), Saul (essentially identical across Italian/English), Sha'ul (Hebrew original), and the original Hebrew Sha'ul.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Saul
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Saul by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2006 with 1,120 boys named Saul (boy rank #298 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #557 for boys (535 US births). That's 259 places below its 2006 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Saul Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Saul the strongest states are Texas, California, Arizona.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #306 | 1,130 |
| 2 | California | #316 | 1,149 |
| 3 | Arizona | #348 | 212 |
| 4 | New Mexico | #353 | 38 |
| 5 | Nevada | #365 | 75 |
| 6 | Illinois | #487 | 205 |
| 7 | Oregon | #545 | 63 |
| 8 | New York | #559 | 255 |
| 9 | Utah | #593 | 37 |
| 10 | Colorado | #599 | 85 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Missouri | #935 | 16 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | #882 | 27 |
| 3 | North Carolina | #875 | 69 |
| 4 | Michigan | #833 | 26 |
| 5 | Minnesota | #827 | 17 |
| 6 | Virginia | #776 | 52 |
| 7 | Indiana | #765 | 65 |
| 8 | Wisconsin | #753 | 31 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #752 | 43 |
| 10 | Georgia | #709 | 108 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Saul in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sol | Peace. Variant Of Shalom. In The Bible Solomon (Son Of David And Bathsheba) Succeeded His Father As King Of Israel And Wrote Proverbs: Ecclesiastes And The Song Of Solomon. | Male | Hebrew |
Famous People Named Saul
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Saul.
- Saul Alinsky was an American writer, political activist and community organiser.
- Saul Williams — Rapper (1972)
Looking for names like Saul?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Saul to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Saul against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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