Christel

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Christel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In French, recorded as Germanic/short form of Christina/Christine, from Greek Christos 'anointed'.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
  • BEBelgium≈1 in 1.2K
  • SESweden1 in 2.1K

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈69,000 people, est.

Sources
323 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)

Germany, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Germanic/short form of Christina/Christine, from Greek Christos 'anointed'.

Sources 1

  • Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Christel is read(measured from records)

Christel is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

  • German34%

    Zu Christian; verstreute Form, Karte zu r-Schwund/Konsonantenvariation.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

  • French32%

    Germanic/short form of Christina/Christine, from Greek Christos 'anointed'.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

    Forme dérivée de Christine/Christian, issue du grec christos, « ancré, messie ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

    Diminutif de Christian/Christine; du grec christianos, « chrétien ».

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

    Variante de Christian, du latin Christianus, « chrétien ».

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • English21%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Christel in English.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Christel 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.

Where Christel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#258≈69,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Christel169
FR France—≈21,000 est.≈1 in 3.2K21K—7
BE Belgium#300≈10,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K6Christel90
US United States—4,8401 in 69K4.8KChristel323
SE Sweden#3784,8391 in 2.1K4.8KChristel65
DK Denmark#4561,1811 in 5K1.2KChristel88

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; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Christel is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name33 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, United States, Philippines

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Christèl, Chris'Tel, Christél, Christ'El

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Christél

  • Croatian given name14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Philippines, Netherlands

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian

    Also written Kristel, Кристел

  • Russian given name17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Estonia, Peru

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Кристель, Kristel, Christelle, Кристэль, Крістель

51 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Christel 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 Swedish, Christel är ursprungligen en tysk smekform till → Christina. De senaste åren har också den amerikanska formen Christelle börjat användas. I den rikssvenska almanackan 15 mars. I den finlandssvenska almanackan finns Kristel 24 juli.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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)

190019502000Christel Petitcollin, b. 1901Christel Peters, b. 1916Christel Bodenstein, b. 1938Christel Steffin, b. 1940Christel Buschmann, b. 1942Christel Frese, b. 1944Alana Dante, b. 1969Christel Takigawa, b. 1977Chisu, b. 1982Christel Khalil, b. 1987

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 74 sources across 41 countries.

Official registers attesting Christel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020572#41,101
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000484#42,217
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010460#46,314
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199121—
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)20082#137,374

Reference works 4

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 Christel mean, and where does it come from?
Germanic/short form of Christina/Christine, from Greek Christos 'anointed'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
Is Christel a male or female name?
Christel is a female 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 Christel?
In the etymology graph, Christine, Chris and Cristina are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Christel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 69 thousand people named Christel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled christel.
How common is the name Christel?
In the United States, the national register counted 4,840 people named Christel in 2020, about 1 in 69 thousand residents.
How common is Christel compared with other names?
In Germany, Christel is the 258th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Christel?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/christel

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Christel” — the 258th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Christel parses inside a full name →