Abel peaked in 2015 at rank 220 and has held remarkably close to that position across the years since. The total American count of 64,483 is concentrated heavily in the post-2000 era. Abel is one of the more interesting cases of a biblical name whose modern American climb runs partly through Hispanic-American naming and partly through pop-culture rotation, with both threads reinforcing each other.
The Hebrew breath
Abel comes from Hebrew Hevel, meaning "breath" or "vapor," with overtones of fleeting transience (the same root that opens Ecclesiastes with "vanity of vanities"). The biblical Abel is the second son of Adam and Eve, the first murder victim, killed by his brother Cain. His name's transient meaning works as foreshadowing of his short life in the narrative, which gives the name a faintly mournful undertone in religious contexts.
For centuries the name was used sparingly in Christian Europe, partly because the biblical figure has no descendants and partly because of the connection to violent death. Hispanic-American families have used Abel more steadily than Anglo-American families across the 20th century, and the current climb runs heavily through this community.
The pop-culture overlay
Two contemporary bearers have given Abel modern visibility. The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) released his breakthrough mixtapes in 2011 and has become one of the most prominent musicians of the 2010s and 2020s. Abel Tesfaye's profile coincides closely with Abel's climb on American charts, suggesting that musical visibility has helped accelerate what was already a slow Hispanic-American climb. Sons of Anarchy character Abel Teller (the protagonist's son, born in the show's first season in 2008) gave the name a separate visibility through 2010s prestige TV.
Abel sits inside a cluster of short biblical boy names doing well: Jude, Eli, Joel, and Caleb. The cluster favors two-syllable, vowel-prominent names with Old Testament anchoring.
The counter-reading
The honest concern with Abel is the meaning load combined with the biblical-narrative association. The name means "breath" but the biblical figure dies young, which some parents find unsettling enough to disqualify the name. Others find the meaning beautiful and ignore the narrative. The decision is personal and depends on how literally the family takes the biblical-figure association. The Hebrew-origin cluster places Abel in context.