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I love it. I think it sounds soft and pretty. I don't find it dated, but I do know quite a few. It's a pretty standard white suburban name.

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I like Rachael too, but I prefer Rachel because it's simpler and it's how everyone is going to assume it's spelt.

It honestly sounds dated to me, but it is a pretty Biblical names.

Yeah, a little dated, about like Jessica. It was one of the most common names when I was growing up in California (people born in the 70s), not as common as Christi-names or Jennifer, about as common as Michelle or Kimberly. I had a neighbor Rachael, and a friend Rachel. It's a nice name, I get an image of spiraling vines or curls, for some reason... it's just a graceful sound I guess.

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I think I slightly prefer Rachel because it's more frequent, and looks like it sounds. I kinda want to say Rachael as Ra-kyle or ra-ky-EL. Because it looks like Raphael and Michael. But I like the way the letters in Rachael look too. Looks less basic. Either way it's not really my style, so not a favorite.

This message was edited 7/16/2018, 10:10 AM

I like it, a lot.

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I can't tell if it's dated, or not. It's a classic, biblical name, so maybe not? But, I'm sure people would assume a Rachel was born in the 80's, or 90's, so don't listen to me.

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I am one, and I have met maybe four, or five other Rachels, in my life.

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I like Rachael. That's the way I spell it. :)

Rachel is my preferred spelling because it's the most intuitive. I wouldn't want to spend my whole life saying 'No, not Rachel, R-a-c-h-a-e-l' on the phone.

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I don't think it's dated. It's in constant use.

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I think I've known about 6 Rachel's? All between 50 and 18.

I like it a lot. I wouldn't call it dated: it's a classic and it's consistently in use, but in a cyclical way. Here it's coming down from a peak of top 100 use between the 1960s and 2008, after last making the top 100 in the 1900s. It's still at 263 though, and I think it will stay around.

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It was a passed-down name in my family for several generations: the first one was born in 1811. She's Rachael in some of her data, and so is one of the two Rach(a)els I know. I'd choose the simpler form if I were using it, but Rachael as a variant has a long history, and I think it's fine.

I prefer Rachael. It's never been popular at all where I live, at least not in English. In Afrikaans, pronounced RRAH-CHel, it's more frequent.

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Good name; biblical but not aggressively so; sounds pretty. Only problem is that it shortens to Ray, which I deplore, though others here have said this doesn't happen in the US.