Martell
surname · Latin script
Meaning: metonymic occupational name for a smith, or nickname for a forceful person, from martell ‘hammer’ (Late Latin martellus)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 19 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/maɾˈtel/(recorded in a dictionary) Spanish · from Wiktionary
Martell is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- PEPeru≈1 in 14Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- UYUruguay1 in 15K
- CACanada≈1 in 15K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 374 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
11,158 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Peru, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)metonymic occupational name for a smith, or nickname for a forceful person, from martell ‘hammer’ (Late Latin martellus).
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Martell 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 | 11,158 | 1 in 30K | 11K | Martell | 374 |
| MX Mexico | ≈8,700 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 162 | — | 4 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Martell | 110 |
| CA Canada | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Martell | 132 |
| PE Peru | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Martell | 30 |
| UY Uruguay | 229 | 1 in 15K | 229 | — | — |
11,158 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); RENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset). 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)Martell 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 Catalan, hammer (tool)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In lmo, hammer
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)- Jean Martellb. 1694JEFrench distiller (1694-1753)
- Carlos Mardelb. 1695HUnot in their usual nameHungarian-born Portuguese architect and military engineer (1695-1763)
- Alphonse Martellb. 1890FRFrench actor
- Karl Hermann Martellb. 1906DEGerman film actor (1906-1966)
- Donna Martellb. 1927USAmerican actress
- Peter Martellb. 1938ITItalian actor (1938-2010)
- Piera Martellb. 1943CHSwiss singer
- Jean-Henrik Martellb. 1949SESwedish rower
- Liisa Repo-Martellb. 1971CACanadian actor and artist
- Jaeden Martellb. 2003USAmerican 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)32 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 11K | #3,234 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 11K | #3,331 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 9.6K | #3,424 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 229 | — |
| MX Mexico | RENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset) | — | 162 | #1,356 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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
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 Martell mean, and where does it come from?
- metonymic occupational name for a smith, or nickname for a forceful person, from martell ‘hammer’ (Late Latin martellus). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Martell?
- In Spanish /maɾˈtel/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Martell have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Martell, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled martell.
- How common is the name Martell?
- In the United States, the national register counted 11,158 people named Martell in 2010, about 1 in 30 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Martell?
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/martellThe 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, “Martell”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.