Kamel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from kamei ‘camel’ (Latin camelus, Greek kamelos-, cf
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kaməl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kamel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Algeria than in any other country, where it is the 12th most common given name.
- DZAlgeria≈1 in 452(inferred from the name graph)
- TNTunisia≈1 in 592
- FRFrance≈1 in 2.9K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Algeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 311 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 452 (inferred from the name graph)
≈95,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Algeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from kamei ‘camel’ (Latin camelus, Greek kamelos-, cf. Hebrew gamal). This was a common house sign in central Europe in the later Middle Ages, and the surname generally denoted someone who lived in a house bearing this sign. It may also have been a nickname for an ill-tempered or clumsy person, or as a Jewish name it was probably ornamental.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kamel counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DZ Algeria | #12 | ≈95,000 est. | ≈1 in 452 | — | Kamel | 100 |
| FR France | #426 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | 14K | Kamel | 311 |
| TN Tunisia | #18 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 592 | 1.6K | Kamel | 74 |
| EG Egypt | #493 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | — | Kamel | 165 |
| SY Syria | #830 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | — | Kamel | 30 |
| US United States | — | 1,173 | 1 in 284K | 2.2K | Kamel | 248 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); INS Tunisia — Les prénoms des nouveau-nés les plus populaires (2022); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Kamel is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from a personal name based on Arabic kdmil ‘perfect’, ‘complete’. Compare Kamal.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, house name; see Kamehl/Kämmel
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Polish, synonym of wielbłąd (“camel”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Bokmål, a camel (in particular the Bactrian camel, Camelus bactrianus)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, camel (especially the Bactrian camel, Camelus bactrianus)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Kamel Arekatb. 1906JOPalestinian Jordanian militant and politician
- Kamel Maghurb. 1935LYLibyan lawyer and writer (1935–2002)
- Ahmad Tibib. 1958ILnot in their usual nameArab-Israeli politician of Palestinian descent
- Kamel El Bashab. 1962PSPalestinian actor and director
- Kamel Daoudb. 1970DZAlgerian writer
- Kamel Belghazib. 1970FRFrench actor
- Kamel Ouejdideb. 1980MAMoroccan and French footballer (1980–2024)
- Kamel Ghilasb. 1984FRAlgerian footballer
- Kamel El-Torkyb. 2003EGactor
- Kamel Abdessadokactor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 68 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.2K | #13,421 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,633 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 997 | #23,698 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 135 | — |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Kamel come from?
- from kamei ‘camel’ (Latin camelus, Greek kamelos-, cf. Hebrew gamal). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kamel?
- A machine transcription gives /kaməl/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Kamel mean?
- Recorded meaning: from kamei ‘camel’ (Latin camelus, Greek kamelos-, cf.
- Is Kamel a male or female name?
- Kamel is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Kamel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 95 thousand people named Kamel in Algeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kamel.
- How common is the name Kamel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,173 people named Kamel in 2020, about 1 in 284 thousand residents.
- How common is Kamel compared with other names?
- In Algeria, Kamel is the 12th most common given name of 27,215 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kamel?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kamelThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Kamel” — the 12th most common given name in Algeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.