Machel

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Machel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Mozambique than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Samora Moises. president.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 1.1M(measured from records)
  • MZMozambique≈1 in 52K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 124K

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.

Mozambique (inferred from the name graph)

≈580 people, est.

Sources
123 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 52K (inferred from the name graph)

Mozambique, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

Samora Moises. president.

Sources 1

  • Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

Where in the world(measured from records)

Machel 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 Machel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MZ Mozambique≈580 est.≈1 in 52K1—2
ZA South Africa≈460 est.≈1 in 124K—Machel10
NG Nigeria≈310 est.≈1 in 681K—Machel11
US United States3021 in 1.1M193Machel123
PH Philippines≈200 est.≈1 in 545K—Machel9
JM Jamaica≈20 est.≈1 in 138K—Machel5
GY Guyana61 in 125K6—1

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; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Machel is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Polish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland

    Also written Mãchel

  • Portuguese given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Angola, South Africa

    Also written Machél

  • Indonesian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Philippines, Malaysia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Machèl

44 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)

Machel 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 English, Mozambique

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

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)

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 37 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Machel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020163#114,090
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010143#120,901
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000121#129,619
MZ MozambiqueWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—1#148
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

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 Machel mean, and where does it come from?
Samora Moises. president. Recorded by Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names.
Is Machel a male or female name?
Machel 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.
In which country does Machel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 584 people named Machel in Mozambique, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Machel?
In the United States, the national register counted 302 people named Machel in 2020, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.

What do you want to know about Machel?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Machel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Machel parses inside a full name →