Riel
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The monetary unit of Cambodia, equivalent to 100 sen or 10 kak. Symbol: ៛
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɹiɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Riel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 44K(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 56K
- DEGermany≈1 in 96K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 240 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
2,125 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Belgium, 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)
The monetary unit of Cambodia, equivalent to 100 sen or 10 kak. Symbol: ៛
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Riel is read(measured from records)
Riel is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English64%
The monetary unit of Cambodia, equivalent to 100 sen or 10 kak. Symbol: ៛
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish7.8%
rail, track
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French6.3%
de (Le) Riel, nom de plusieurs localités en France
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
- Dutch6.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Riel in Dutch.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Riel 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 2,125 | 1 in 157K | 2.2K | Riel | 240 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 56K | — | Riel | 66 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 44K | 1 | Riel | 98 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 96K | — | Riel | 72 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈590 est. | ≈1 in 111K | 68 | Riel | 55 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 27K | — | Riel | 45 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Riel | 31 |
| DK Denmark | — | 146 | 1 in 40K | 146 | — | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | #645 | 86 | 1 in 201K | 86 | Riel | 82 |
2,125 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Riel is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In enm, alternative form of ryal
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Czech: short form of GABRIEL .
as a word
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)
- Pierre Riel de Beurnonvilleb. 1752FRMarshal of France (1752-1821)
- Louis Riel, Sr.b. 1817CAfarmer, miller, Métis leader, and the father of Louis Riel
- Louis Rielb. 1844CAMétis leader in Canada (1844–1885)
- Maurice Rielb. 1922CACanadian politician (1922–2007)
- Jørn Rielb. 1931DKDanish writer (1931–2023)
- Alex Rielb. 1940DKDanish musician (1940–2024)
- Gert Rielb. 1941DEGerman sculptor
- Ane Rielb. 1971DKDanish writer
- André Rielb. 1989DKDanish association football player
- Cole Rielb. 1995USAmerican politician
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 38 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.2K | #13,012 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.1K | #14,139 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2K | #14,561 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 146 | #3,692 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 86 | #21,292 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 36 | #62,359 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 does the name Riel mean, and where does it come from?
- The monetary unit of Cambodia, equivalent to 100 sen or 10 kak. Symbol: ៛ Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Riel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɹiɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Riel have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.1 thousand people named Riel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled riel.
- How common is the name Riel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,125 people named Riel in 2010, about 1 in 157 thousand residents.
- How common is Riel compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Riel is the 645th most common surname of 284,143 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Riel?
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/rielThe 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, “Riel” — the 645th most common surname in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.