Niel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Niehl near Cologne; Niels often from Nicolaus, sometimes Cornelius
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈniɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Niel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 9.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 22K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 255 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈11,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Niehl near Cologne; Niels often from Nicolaus, sometimes Cornelius
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Where in the world(measured from records)
Niel 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.5K | — | Niel | 95 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Niel | 55 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Niel | 62 |
| US United States | 1,161 | 1 in 287K | 1.1K | Niel | 255 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈690 est. | ≈1 in 96K | 3 | Niel | 126 |
| BE Belgium | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 8 | Niel | 32 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈74 est. | ≈1 in 66K | — | Niel | 29 |
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); 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)
Niel 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.
In English, shortened form of McNeil and O’Neil.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In German, zu Rufname Niel/Niels, Kurzform von Nikolaus; teils auch Cornelius
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
variant spelling of Neill.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Dutch, town on the river Rupel in the southwest of the Belgian province of Antwerp
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Slovak, genitive plural of Nela
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)
- Niel Gowb. 1727Scottish musician (1727-1807)
- Niel Walkerb. 1895GBEnglish cricketer (1895-1960)
- Donald Niel Cameronb. 1917CACanadian politician (1917–2014)
- Niel Tupas, Sr.b. 1932PHFilipino politician (1932-2015)
- Niel Hancockb. 1941USAmerican writer
- Niel Brandtb. 1970USAmerican astronomer
- Niel Tupas, Jr.b. 1970PHFilipino politician
- Junielb. 1993KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer
- Neal ElAttrachenot in their usual nameAmerican orthopedic surgeon
- Niel L. BruceAUAustralian carcinologist
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 61 sources across 33 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.1K | #11,184 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 29 | #11,184 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1981 | 3 | #306 |
Reference works 6
- 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
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- How do you pronounce Niel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈniɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Niel mean, and where does it come from?
- from Niehl near Cologne; Niels often from Nicolaus, sometimes Cornelius Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- Is Niel a male or female name?
- Niel 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 Niel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 11 thousand people named Niel in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled niel.
- How common is the name Niel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,161 people named Niel in 2020, about 1 in 287 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Niel?
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/nielThe 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, “Niel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.