Mel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: honey
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/mɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 5.7K
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 9.2K
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 Mel 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)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 472 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
22,045 named May, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Miia in FI Finland.
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)
honey
Sources 1
- A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mel 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 | — | 22,045as May | 1 in 15K | 103K | Mel | 472 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.2K | — | Mel | 120 |
| FI Finland | — | 9,778as Miia | 1 in 570 | 10K | Miia | 10 |
| BR Brazil | — | 9,082 | 1 in 23K | 9.1K | — | 5 |
| NO Norway | — | 8,217as May | 1 in 665 | 18K | — | 10 |
| AU Australia | #569 | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 4K | 1 | Mel | 213 |
| SE Sweden | — | 4,432as May | 1 in 2.3K | 4.4K | Mel | 21 |
| NZ New Zealand | #430 | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | 11 | Mel | 112 |
22,045 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling may. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Mel is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
English: short form of MELVIN or MELVILLE , or, in the case of the female name, of MELANIE or the several other female names beginning with this syllable.
as a word
In nci, second-person singular possessive singular of ēlli; (it is) your liver.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Czech, second-person singular imperative of mlít
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In puw, laugh, giggle a little, smile
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In enm, A time, occasion or event.
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)
- Mel Sheppardb. 1883USAmerican athlete (1883–1942)
- Mel Blancb. 1908USAmerican voice actor (1908–1989)
- Mel Ferrerb. 1917USAmerican actor, director and producer (1917–2008)
- Mel Brooksb. 1926USAmerican comedian, filmmaker, and actor (born 1926)
- Mel Stuartb. 1928USAmerican film director and producer (1928–2012)
- Mel Carnahanb. 1934USGovernor of Missouri, 2000 U.S. senator-elect (1934–2000)
- Mel Martínezb. 1946CUAmerican politician
- Mel Smithb. 1952GBBritish comedian and actor (1952–2013)
- Mel Gibsonb. 1956USAmerican actor, director, producer and screenwriter (born 1956)
- Mel Harrisb. 1956USAmerican actress
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 75 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 9.1K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 8.9K | #1,833 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 5.4K | #2,893 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 4.1K | #3,782 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.5K | #2,893 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 1.6K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 190 | #1,833 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 57 | #12,528 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 35 | #10,175 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 35 | #9,910 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 16 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 15 | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Mel a male or female name?
- Mel 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 Mel?
- In the etymology graph, Melisa, Missy and Melania are forms of the same name in other languages; Melinda, Melina and Mindy are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Melissa and Melanie.
- What does the name Mel mean, and where does it come from?
- honey Recorded by A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese.
- In which country does Mel have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 22 thousand people named May, more than in any other country we hold.
- How do you pronounce Mel?
- A machine transcription gives /mɛl/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Mel?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 9,082 people named Mel in 2022, about 1 in 23 thousand residents.
- How common is Mel compared with other names?
- In New Zealand, Mel is the 430th most common given name of 26,737 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Mel?
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/melThe 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, “Mel” — the 430th most common given name in New Zealand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.