Gissel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from a Germanic personal name based on glsil ‘pledge’, ‘hostage’, ‘noble youth’ (see Giesel)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɣissel/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gissel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- UYUruguay1 in 10K(measured from records)
- PYParaguay≈1 in 11K
- HNHonduras≈1 in 28K
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 States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 175 (measured from records)
- 1 in 10K (inferred from the name graph)
2,330 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a Germanic personal name based on glsil ‘pledge’, ‘hostage’, ‘noble youth’ (see Giesel).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gissel 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 2,330 | 1 in 143K | 2.3K | Gissel | 175 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 1,117 | 1 in 15K | 1.1K | Gissel | 26 |
| CO Colombia | — | ≈820 est. | ≈1 in 60K | 1 | Gissel | 44 |
| PY Paraguay | #384 | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Gissel | 18 |
| CL Chile | — | ≈520 est. | ≈1 in 35K | 3 | Gissel | 37 |
| UY Uruguay | #197 | 334 | 1 in 10K | 334 | Gissel | 27 |
| HN Honduras | #276 | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Gissel | 26 |
2,330 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; INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); the co-datosgov-candidates register; SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); INEC — civil registry names. 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)
Gissel is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, a scourge (whip)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Nynorsk, a hostage
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Cynthia Gissel García Soberanesb. 1970MXMexican politician
- Torkel Gissel NielsenDKprofessor of biological oceanography
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 38 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.3K | #6,771 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | — | 1.1K | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 1.1K | #862 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 334 | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 324 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2004 | 152 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2002 | 149 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2001 | 146 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2003 | 145 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1999 | 143 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2008 | 140 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2000 | 140 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Gissel mean, and where does it come from?
- from a Germanic personal name based on glsil ‘pledge’, ‘hostage’, ‘noble youth’ (see Giesel). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Gissel?
- A machine transcription gives /ɣissel/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Is Gissel a male or female name?
- Gissel 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.
- In which country does Gissel have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.3 thousand people named Gissel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gissel.
- Where is Gissel most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Gissel is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 10 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Gissel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,330 people named Gissel in 2020, about 1 in 143 thousand residents.
- How common is Gissel compared with other names?
- In Uruguay, Gissel is the 197th most common given name of 12,212 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gissel?
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/gisselThe 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, “Gissel” — the 197th most common given name in Uruguay. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.