Nigël
surname · Latin script
Nigël is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country. Recorded meaning: English form of Latin Nigellus, from nigellus (“slightly black”), diminutive of niger (“(shining) black”), particularly used in the Middle Ages to Latinize Norman Néel and Irish Neil.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.5K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.4K
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 Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 455 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 588 (inferred from the name graph)
≈63,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Zimbabwe, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Nigel in GB United Kingdom, US United States, AU Australia and 3 more.
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)
English form of Latin Nigellus, from nigellus (“slightly black”), diminutive of niger (“(shining) black”), particularly used in the Middle Ages to Latinize Norman Néel and Irish Neil.
Sources 3
- A concise dictionary of first names
- Wiktionary
- Nordic Names
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nigël 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #155 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 3 | Nigel | 347 |
| ZW Zimbabwe | #550 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 588 | — | Nigel | 38 |
| US United States | — | 14,004 | 1 in 24K | 14K | Nigel | 455 |
| AU Australia | #394 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 70 | Nigel | 240 |
| ZA South Africa | #643 | ≈9,900 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | — | Nigel | 104 |
| NZ New Zealand | #182 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 10 | Nigel | 145 |
| GY Guyana | — | 856 | 1 in 876 | 856 | — | 11 |
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: NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Nigël mean, and where does it come from?
- English form of Latin Nigellus, from nigellus (“slightly black”), diminutive of niger (“(shining) black”), particularly used in the Middle Ages to Latinize Norman Néel and Irish Neil. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and Wiktionary and 1 other source.
- In which country does Nigël have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 63 thousand people named Nigël in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nigel.
- How common is the name Nigël?
- In the United States, the national register counted 14,004 people named Nigël in 2020, about 1 in 24 thousand residents.
- How common is Nigël compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Nigël is the 155th most common given name of 404,737 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nigël?
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/nig%C3%ABlThe 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, “Nigël” — the 155th most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.