Rahul

Rahul
Gender	Male
Origin
Word/name	India
Meaning	Conqueror of all miseries, Bondage, Traveler
Region of origin	India

Last updated August 17, 2025

Rahul is a popular male name in India and may be derived from the name Rahula, the name given to the son of the Buddha according to certain Buddhist traditions.^[1]^[2] The name Rahula in turn is derived from the name Rahu, a Hindu mythological figure that causes eclipses. In some traditions, the name Rahula was bestowed on the Buddha's son, meaning either fetter, chain, or bond,^[1] representing his obstruction of the Buddha's Enlightenment, while other traditions claim that the name means eclipse or obstruction, and was given to him as he was born on the night of a lunar eclipse.^[2]

People named Rahul

Arts

Rahul Banerjee (actor) (born 1983), Indian Bengali actor
Rahul Bhatt (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 (born 1968), Indian actor and model
Rahul Dev Burman (1939–1994), Indian composer and music director
Rahul Dholakia, Indian film director, producer, and screenwriter
Rahul Khanna (born 1972), Indian Hindi actor
Rahul Kohli (born 1985), English actor
Rahul Madhav, Indian Malayalam actor
Rahul Nambiar, Indian singer
Rahul Pandey, Indian Bollywood musician
Rahul Raj (born 1980), Indian composer
Rahul Ram, Indian musician
Rahul Ramakrishna (born 1991), Indian actor, writer and journalist
Rahul Ravindran, Indian actor
Rahul Rawail (born 1951), Indian film director
Rahul Roy (born 1968), Indian Hindi actor, producer and model
Rahul Vaidya (born 1987), Indian singer

Politics

Rahul Daulatrao Aher (born 1975), Indian politician from Maharashtra
Rahul Gandhi (born 1970), Indian politician
Rahul Mahajan (politician) (born 1975), son of Late Pramod Mahajan, a prominent Indian politician

Science

Rahul Mukerjee (born 1956), Indian academic and statistician
Rahul Pandit (born 1956), Indian physicist
Rahul Potluri (born 1983), Indian-British physician and researcher
Rahul Sarpeshkar, American bio-engineer

Sports

Rahul Banerjee (archer) (born 1986), Indian archer
Rahul Bheke (born 1990), Indian footballer
Rahul Chahar (born 1999), Indian cricketer
Rahul Dravid (born 1973), Indian cricketer
K. L. Rahul (born 1991), Indian cricketer
Rahul Kanwat (born 1974), Indian cricketer
Rahul Sanghvi (born 1974), Indian cricketer
Rahul Yadav (cricketer) (born 1989), Indian cricketer
Rahul Yadav Chittaboina (born 1998), Indian badminton player
Rahul KP (born 2000), Indian footballer

Other fields

Rahul Bajaj (born 1980), industrialist
Rahul Chandran (born 1976), policy analyst
Rahul Easwar, Indian author and activist
Rahul Ligma, fictional ex-employee of Twitter played by an amateur actor
Rahul Mahajan (blogger), noted American blogger and author
Rahul Roy (accountant) (1963–2009), Indian accountant
Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963), Indian historian, religious scholar, philosopher, writer and polymath
Rahul Sood (born 1973), Canadian business executive
Rahul Yadav (born 1988), Indian entrepreneur

Multiple people

Rahul Kumar (disambiguation), several people
Rahul Prasad (disambiguation), several people
Rahul Sharma (disambiguation), several people
Rahul Singh (disambiguation), several people

References

1 2 Fausböll, V. (1880). Buddhist Birth Stories or Jataka Tales. London: Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill. p. 79.
1 2 Strong, John S. (1997). Schober, Juliane (ed.). Sacred biography in the Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai'i Press. A Family Quest: The Buddha, Yaśodharā, and Rāhula in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. ISBN 978-0-8248-1699-5.