Gael

given name · Latin script

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

Gael is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In French, recorded as Celtic/Breton name meaning 'generous lord'.

rarermore common
  • BRBrazil1 in 1.9K(measured from records)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.1Kas Gail
  • IEIreland≈1 in 1.1Kas Gail

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Gael itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

165,125 named Gail, 2020

#460 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
553 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Ecuador

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

GailLatin(measured from records)
גיילHebrew(measured from records)
가일Hangul(measured from records)
গেইলBengali(measured from records)
ΓκαελGreek(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Gail in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada 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)

Celtic/Breton name meaning 'generous lord'.

Sources 1

  • Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

How Gael is read(measured from records)

Gael 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.

  • Spanish52%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Gael in Spanish.

  • French35%

    Celtic/Breton name meaning 'generous lord'.

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

    Origine celtique, du nom du peuple gaélique; lié aux Celtes installés en Irlande au Ve s.

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

  • English6.5%

    In medieval Irish legend, the hero from whom the Irish race took its name; linked to Old Irish Goidel.

    as a nameIrish first names

    A member of an ethnic group in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, whose language is one that is Gaelic.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    Celtic inhabitant of Ireland, Scotland,

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    or the Isle of Man

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

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)

Gael 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 Gael is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#223165,125as Gail1 in 2K162KGail553
BR Brazil—110,9461 in 1.9K111KGael56
GB United Kingdom#205≈59,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K3Gail257
CA Canada#198≈30,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K3Gail241
EG Egypt—≈28,000 est.≈1 in 3.7K—Gail18
EC Ecuador—11,4861 in 1.5K11KGael18
IE Ireland#148≈4,600 est.≈1 in 1.1K—Gail62
NZ New Zealand#176≈4,300 est.≈1 in 1.1K15Gail110
SI Slovenia—3,109as Gal1 in 6763.2K—15

165,125 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; INEC — civil registry names; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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)

Gael is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Lao given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Thailand, Peru, United States

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Gaël, Gäël, กาเอล, Gâèl, Gaél

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Gaël, Gaêl, Gäel, Gaél, Gae͏̈l

  • French (Côte d’Ivoire) given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Côte d’Ivoire

    Also written Gaël

  • Swedish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Denmark, Norway

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Gaël, Gaèl

  • Polish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Spain, Peru

    Also written Gaël, Gaél

  • Hindi given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, United Kingdom, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Gaël, Gaèl

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, Indonesia, Philippines, United States

    Also written Gaël, Gaèl, Gáel

55 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19701980199020002010Gaël Morel, b. 1972Gael García Bernal, b. 1978Gaël Givet, b. 1981Gaël Danic, b. 1981Gaël Clichy, b. 1985Gaël Monfils, b. 1986Gaël Kakuta, b. 1991Gaël Bigirimana, b. 1993Gaël Ondoua, b. 1995Maxime-Gaël Ngayap Hambou, b. 2001

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 75 sources across 43 countries.

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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

Is Gael a male or female name?
Gael is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Gael mean, and where does it come from?
Celtic/Breton name meaning 'generous lord'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
In which country does Gael have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 165 thousand people named Gail, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Gael most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Gael is densest in Ecuador — about 1 in 1.5 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Gael?
In Brazil, the national register counted 110,946 people named Gael in 2022, about 1 in 1.9 thousand residents.
How common is Gael compared with other names?
In the United States, Gael is the 223rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What are other forms of the name Gael?
In the etymology graph, Gail, Abigail and Gayle are forms of the same name in other languages.

What do you want to know about Gael?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gael

The same 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), 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, “Gael” — the 223rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Gael parses inside a full name →