Armel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Breton name, from arth 'bear' + mael 'prince, chief' or related Celtic elements
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/aʁmɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Armel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Cameroon than in any other country, where it is the 83rd most common given name.
- CMCameroon≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- CGCongo - Brazzaville≈1 in 1K
- CICôte d’Ivoire≈1 in 1.7K
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.
- Cameroon (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 255 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈23,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Congo - Brazzaville, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Breton name, from arth 'bear' + mael 'prince, chief' or related Celtic elements.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Armel 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CM Cameroon | #83 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Armel | 40 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Armel | 27 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #165 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.2K | — | Armel | 16 |
| CG Congo - Brazzaville | #4 | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Armel | 13 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Armel | 20 |
| BJ Benin | #62 | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | Armel | 25 |
| US United States | — | 477 | 1 in 697K | 631 | Armel | 96 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000. 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)
Armel 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 French, Celtic name meaning « prince » and « ours ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Breton name, from saint Armel; celebrated on 16 August.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Prénom lié à un hommage à la noblesse familiale et au blé; évoque un enfant non désiré ou une difficulté d’accueil.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In Maltese, widower
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, armoire
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
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)
- Armel Guerneb. 1911CHpoet and translator (1911-1980)
- Armel Jobb. 1948BEBelgian writer
- Franck Haiseb. 1971FRnot in their usual nameFrench football manager and former player (born 1971)
- Armel Hostioub. 1976FRFrench film director
- Christian Bassilab. 1977FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer (born 1977)
- Armel Le Cléac'hb. 1977FRFrench navigator and skipper
- Armel Tchakounteb. 1978CMCameroonian footballer
- Wilfried Zahab. 1992CInot in their usual nameIvorian association football player (born 1992)
- Jean Armel Droléb. 1997CIIvorian association football player
- Armel Bella-Kotchapb. 2001FRGerman-French association football player
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 52 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 431 | #21,325 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 46 | #21,325 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 13 | — |
Reference works 4
- Wikipedia given-name 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 does the name Armel mean, and where does it come from?
- Breton name, from arth 'bear' + mael 'prince, chief' or related Celtic elements. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- How do you pronounce Armel?
- A machine transcription gives /aʁmɛl/ (IPA) for French.
- Is Armel a male or female name?
- Armel 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.
- What are other forms of the name Armel?
- In the etymology graph, Arzhel and Arthmael are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Armel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 23 thousand people named Armel in Cameroon, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled armel.
- How common is the name Armel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 477 people named Armel in 2020, about 1 in 697 thousand residents.
- How common is Armel compared with other names?
- In Cameroon, Armel is the 83rd most common given name of 9,064 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Armel?
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/armelThe 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, “Armel” — the 83rd most common given name in Cameroon. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.