Burnell
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈbɝnəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Burnell is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States. Recorded meaning: Main GB Location (1881): Somerset, Gloucs, and.
- GBUnited Kingdom
- AUAustralia
- CACanada
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Main GB Location (1881): Somerset, Gloucs, and. nickname, relationship name denoting someone with a brownish complexion, from Middle English burnel, a metathesized form of Old French brunel, a diminutive of Old French brun ‘brown’; used also as a personal name.
Sources 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Burnell is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, This, like Brunell, is derived from Old-French brun, brown : the name of an Anglo-Norman family in Meath and Dublin since the thirteenth century and in Clare from the sixteenth. It is occasionally a synonym of Bernal. Bibl
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)
- Barker Burnellb. 1798USAmerican politician (1798-1843)
- Charles Burnellb. 1876GBBritish rower (1876–1969)
- Dickie Burnellb. 1917GBBritish rower (1917-1995)
- Jocelyn Bell Burnellb. 1943GBBritish astrophysicist (born 1943)
- Mark Burnellb. 1964GBscreenwriter
- Gavin Burnellb. 1973GBresearcher
- Joe Burnellb. 1980GBEnglish footballer (born 1980)
- Jack Burnellb. 1993GBBritish swimmer
- Mads Burnellb. 1994DKDanish mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter
- Mike BurnellFilm Actor
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 24 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.1K | #8,097 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.8K | #8,049 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.7K | #8,510 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 19 | #86,409 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 16 | #43,070 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 11 | #36,458 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 8 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 8 | #149,535 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 5 | #98,416 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 4 | #73,627 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 3 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 3 | #253,750 |
Reference works 5
- 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
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 Burnell mean, and where does it come from?
- Main GB Location (1881): Somerset, Gloucs, and. Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Burnell?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbɝnəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Burnell have the most bearers?
- Burnell is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Burnell?
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/burnellThe 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, “Burnell”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.