Rahul is a popular male name in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and has a variety of meanings. The earliest meaning found in the

Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...

is "conqueror of all miseries." Later use of the word is attributed to the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

, who named his son '' Rahula'' as he felt that family ties could be an obstacle in the path to renunciation and

nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...

. Buddha uttered Rahul when he first saw his son and gave a new meaning "relationship" and "bondage" to this name. Rahul means ''Moon, Able/efficient'' in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

. Rahul also means "Traveler" in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

People named Rahul

Personalities in the fields of Arts

* Rahul Banerjee (actor) (born 1983), Indian Bengali actor *

Rahul Bhatt Rahul Bhatt (born 24 January 1982) is an Indian fitness trainer and actor. The son of film director Mahesh Bhatt and Kiran Bhatt, Rahul gained notoriety in 2009 following revelations that David Headley, an accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, h ...

(born 1982), Indian fitness trainer and actor * Rahul Bose (born 1967), Indian Bengali actor, director, screenwriter, social activist * Rahul Deshpande (born 1979), Indian classical singer *

Rahul Dev Rahul Dev (born 27 September 1968) is an Indian actor and former model who predominantly works in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam language films and few Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi and Odia flims. Early life Ra ...

(born 1968), Indian actor and model *

Rahul Dev Burman Rahul Dev Burman (27 June 1939 – 4 January 1994) was an Indian music director who is considered one of the most influential composers of India. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Burman composed musical scores for 331 films. Burman did major work w ...

(1939–1994), Indian composer and music director * Rahul Dholakia, Indian film director, producer, and screenwriter *

Rahul Khanna Rahul Khanna (born 20 June 1972) is an Indian actor, VJ and writer who works in Bollywood. He is the older son of actor turned politician Vinod Khanna and the older brother of Akshaye Khanna. Early life and background Khanna was born and rai ...

(born 1972), Indian Hindi actor *

Rahul Madhav Rahul Madhav (born 29 December 1984) is an Indian actor who mainly appears in Malayalam cinema. He has also acted in Tamil and Kannada films. His notable films are ''Vaadamalli'', ''Thani Oruvan'', ''Memories'' and ''100 Days of Love''. Acting ...

, Indian Malayalam actor *

Rahul Nambiar Rahul Nambiar is an Indian playback singer and live performer. An MBA and M.Com-graduate, he won the Swapthaswarangal show in 2001 and began singing live. He sung more than 2000 songs in movies,He later ventured into playback singing, performing ...

, Indian singer *

Rahul Pandey Rahul Pandey (Devanagari: राहुल पाण्डेय) is an Indian Bollywood Playback singer and Songwriter. He debuted in the Indian Film industry with the song ''Haseena Tu kameena Mein'' from the movie Happy Ending in 2014. In 2015 ...

, Indian Bollywood musician *

Rahul Raj Rahul Raj (born 17 March 1978) is an Indian music composer. He has composed and produced Film score, scores and soundtracks for Malayalam language, Malayalam, Telugu language, Telugu and Tamil language, Tamil movies. He is an alumnus of the pr ...

(born 1980), Indian composer * Rahul Ram, Indian musician * Rahul Ramakrishna (born 1991), Indian actor, writer and journalist *

Rahul Rawail Rahul Rawail is an Indian film director and editor in Bollywood known for his films like '' Love Story'' (1981), ''Betaab'' (1983), '' Arjun'' (1985), ''Dacait'' (1987), ''Anjaam'' (1994), '' Arjun Pandit'' (1999) and the recent one '' Jo Bole S ...

(born 1951), Indian film director * Rahul Roy (born 1968), Indian Hindi actor, producer and model *

Rahul Vaidya Rahul Krushna Vaidya (born 23 September 1987) is an Indian singer. He has worked as a playback singer in Bollywood films such as '' Shaadi No. 1'', ''Jaan-E-Mann'' and ''Krazzy 4''. He also participated in the reality shows '' Indian Idol 1'' ...

(born 1987), Indian singer * Rrahul Sudhir, Indian television actor

Personalities in Politics

* Rahul Daulatrao Aher (born 1975), Indian politician from Maharashtra * Rahul Gandhi (born 1970), Indian politician *

Rahul Mahajan (politician) Rahul Pramod Mahajan (born 25 July 1975) is an Indian reality show entertainer and former pilot. He is the son of former union cabinet minister Pramod Mahajan. He appeared as a contestant on reality shows like ''Bigg Boss 2'' , ''Bigg Boss Hal ...

(born 1975), son of Late Pramod Mahajan, a prominent Indian politician

Personalities in the fields of Science

* Rahul Mukerjee (born 1956), Indian academic and statistician *

Rahul Pandit Rahul Pandit (born 22 April 1956) is an Indian condensed matter physicist, a professor of physics and a divisional chair at the Indian Institute of Science. Known for his research on phase transitions and ''spatiotemporal chaos and turbulence'', ...

(born 1956), Indian physicist * Rahul Potluri (born 1983), Indian-British physician and researcher * Rahul Sarpeshkar, American bio-engineer

Personalities in Sports

Rahul Banerjee (archer) Rahul Banerjee (born 15 December 1986) is an Indian Olympic and Arjuna Awardee archer. Career Banerjee started archery at the age of thirteen. His sister Dola Banerjee is also an Olympic archer. His first international appearance was in Youth ...

(born 1986), Indian archer *

Rahul Bheke Rahul is a popular male name in India and has a variety of meanings. The earliest meaning found in the Upanishads is "conqueror of all miseries." Later use of the word is attributed to the Buddha, who named his son ''Rahula'' as he felt that fam ...

(born 1990), Indian footballer * Rahul Chahar (born 1999), Indian cricketer *

Rahul Dravid Rahul Sharad Dravid (; born 11 January 1973) is an Indian cricket coach and former captain of the Indian national team, currently serving as its head coach. Prior to his appointment to the senior men's national team, Dravid was the Head of ...

(born 1973), Indian cricketer *

K. L. Rahul Kannanur Lokesh Rahul (born 18 April 1992) is an Indian international cricketer who currently is the vice-captain of the Indian cricket team in test cricket. He is a Right-handed batter and occasional wicketkeeper. He plays for Karnataka in ...

(born 1991), Indian cricketer *

Rahul Kanwat This is a list of cricketers who have played First-class cricket, first-class, List A cricket, List A or Twenty20 cricket for Rajasthan cricket team. Seasons given are first and last seasons; the player did not necessarily play in all the inter ...

(born 1974), Indian cricketer *

Rahul Sanghvi Rahul Sanghvi (born 3 September 1974) is an Indian cricketer, specialising in left arm orthodox spin. He played for the Delhi state team. He played one Test match, which was the first Test between Australia and India in 2001 but was dropped a ...

(born 1974), Indian cricketer * Rahul Yadav (cricketer) (born 1989), Indian cricketer *

Rahul Yadav Chittaboina Rahul Yadav Chittaboina (born 3 May 1998) is an Indian badminton player. He reached the semi-finals of 2017 Russian Open. Achievements BWF International Challenge/Series ''Men's singles'' : BWF International Challenge tournament : BWF ...

(born 1998), Indian badminton player

Other personalities

* Rahul Bajaj (born 1980), industrialist * Rahul Chandran (born 1976), policy analyst *

Rahul Easwar Rahul is a popular male name in India and has a variety of meanings. The earliest meaning found in the Upanishads is "conqueror of all miseries." Later use of the word is attributed to the Buddha, who named his son '' Rahula'' as he felt that fa ...

, Indian author and activist *

Rahul Ligma Rahul Ligma is a fictional fired Twitter employee, a character played by one of a pair of amateur improvisational actors that pranked multiple major media outlets on October 28, 2022. The spontaneous and intentionally transparent hoax was revealed ...

, fictional ex-employee of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

played by an amateur actor *

Rahul Mahajan (blogger) Rahul Mahajan is an American blogger, author, and educator. He has written two books and has had articles published in a wide range of newspapers including USA Today, Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, the Dallas Morning News. He currently serves on ...

, noted American blogger and author * Rahul Roushan (born 1980), Indian journalist and strategist * Rahul Roy (accountant) (1963–2009), Indian accountant *

Rahul Sankrityayan Rahul Sankrityayan (born Kedarnath Pandey; 9 April 1893 – 14 April 1963) was an Indian writer and a polyglot who wrote in Hindi. He played a pivotal role in giving travelogue a 'literary form'. He was one of the most widely travelled scholars ...

(1893–1963), Indian historian, religious scholar, philosopher, writer and polymath * Rahul Sood (born 1973), Canadian business executive *

Rahul Yadav Rahul Yadav (born 1989) is an Indian entrepreneur best known for being the co-founder and former CEO of Indian real estate search portal Housing.com. Citing his young age, he distributed all of his personal equity in Housing.com, worth around ...

(born 1988), Indian entrepreneur

Others

* Rahul Kumar (disambiguation), several people * Rahul Prasad (disambiguation), several people *

Rahul Sharma (disambiguation) Rahul Sharma may refer to: *Rahul Sharma (actor), Indian actor *Rahul Sharma (Gujarat police), Indian police officer *Rahul Sharma (Hong Kong cricketer) (born 1960), Hong Kong cricketer *Rahul Sharma (cricketer, born 1986), Indian cricketer *Rahul S ...

, several people * Rahul Singh (disambiguation), several people

Awards named with Rahul

Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan Award Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan Award (Devnagari: महापंडित राहुल सांकृत्यायन पुरस्कार) is a literary honor in India which Kendriya Hindi Sansthan, (Central Hindi Organization), Ministr ...

is a Literary award in

Movies with the name Rahul

Rahul's Arranged Marriage ''Rahul's Arranged Marriage'', is a 2005 silent Canadian film Cinema in Canada dates back to the earliest known display of film in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, in 1896. The film industry in Canada has been dominated by the United States, which has u ...

(2005) *

Rahul Rahul is a popular male name in India and has a variety of meanings. The earliest meaning found in the Upanishads is "conqueror of all miseries." Later use of the word is attributed to the Buddha, who named his son '' Rahula'' as he felt that fa ...

(2001)