Nell
given name · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from the medieval personal name Nel, a form of Neil; (ii) from Dutch/German Nel, a shortened form of Cornelius
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 40 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/nɛl/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Nell is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 12Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 15Kfew records
- SGSingapore≈1 in 24Kfew records
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.
- Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 381 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
≈20,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Pakistan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)(i) from the medieval personal name Nel, a form of Neil; (ii) from Dutch/German Nel, a shortened form of Cornelius.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Nell, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Nell 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Nell | 2 |
| US United States | — | 7,222 | 1 in 46K | 7.1K | Nell | 381 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 33K | 16 | Nell | 151 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Nell | 7 |
| FR France | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 41K | 3.3K | — | 4 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈930 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 2 | Nell | 90 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 56 | Nell | 28 |
| IE Ireland | #468 | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Nell | 31 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Nell | 18 |
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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)Nell 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.
nickname from Middle High German nelle ‘crown of the head’, perhaps denoting an obstinate person.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Medieval short form of Eleanor, pEllen, and pHelen. For the initial N-, compare Nan and pNed. It was the name by which Charles II’s mistress Eleanor Gwyn (1650-87) was universally known to her contemporaries, and at about that time it also became established as an independent name. Pet forms: Nellie, Nelly.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Neil. Cogn.: Fr.: Nel. Patr.: Eng.: Nelson. The S African surname Nel was first established there in i6go by a family of Huguenot refugees from Rouen.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
from the Middle English personal name Nel(le), a variant of Neill.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from the personal name Nel, a reduced form of Cornelius.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)- Nell Gwynb. 1650GBRoyal mistress (1650-1687)
- Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthurb. 1837USnot in their usual namewife of U.S. president Chester A. Arthur (1837–1880)
- Nell Carterb. 1948USAmerican actress and singer (1948–2003)
- Nell Campbellb. 1953AUAustralian actor and singer
- Reba McEntireb. 1955USnot in their usual nameAmerican country singer and actress (born 1955)
- Nell Scovellb. 1960USAmerican television and magazine writer, and producer
- Nellie McKayb. 1982USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician
- Nell Williamsb. 1998GBBritish actress
- Nell Tiger Freeb. 1999GBEnglish actress
- Nell Fisherb. 2011GBEnglish and New Zealand actress (born 2011)
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)83 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.6K | #11,302 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.1K | #14,378 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2K | #14,199 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 56 | #24,072 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 8 | — |
Reference works 8
- 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
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- What are other forms of the name Nell?
- In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Ellen are forms of the same name in other languages; Nelly and Nellie are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Elnora.
- What does the name Nell mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from the medieval personal name Nel, a form of Neil; (ii) from Dutch/German Nel, a shortened form of Cornelius. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Nell a male or female name?
- Nell is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), France (INSEE, 2024), Poland (dane.gov.pl) and Norway (SSB).
- In which country does Nell have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 20 thousand people named Nell in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nell.
- How do you pronounce Nell?
- In English /nɛl/ (Wiktionary).
- How common is the name Nell?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,222 people named Nell in 2020, about 1 in 46 thousand residents.
- How common is Nell compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Nell is the 468th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nell?
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/nellThe 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, “Nell” — the 468th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.