Penel

surname · Latin script

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

/pənɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Penel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 40K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 172K
  • BEBelgium1 in 273K

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.

France (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,700 people, est.

Sources
194 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 40K (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Penel 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 Penel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France≈1,700 est.≈1 in 40K267Penel194
US United States≈55 est.≈1 in 6.1MlistedPenel25
CH Switzerland491 in 172K49Penel13
BE Belgium431 in 273K43Penel4
ES Spain≈38 est.≈1 in 1.3M—Penel2
AR Argentina251 in 1.8M25——

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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)

Penel is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Pénel

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Spain, Uruguay

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Peñel, Pénel

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Pénel

  • Croatian name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Пенел

24 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)

Penel 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 Romanian, brush

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

  • In Romanian, PENÉL, peneluri, s. n. Pensulă mică, cu păr fin și suplu, cu care se pictează. ♦ Fig. Fel, mod, stil de a picta; măiestrie artistică (specifică unui pictor).

    as a wordDEX online (dexonline.ro) - DEX '96 / DEX '98 definitions with etymology

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)

1850190019502000Pierre-Charles-Joseph Penel, b. 1874Jacques Penel, b. 1910Charles Penel, b. 1927Patrick Penel, b. 1948Usul, b. 1985

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)

FormalMadame, Monsieur,Dear Penel, (English)
InformalMadame, Monsieur,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 8 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting Penel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1951298—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1961282—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991267—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1971244—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1941240—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1981239—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1921187—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1931169—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1901143—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1911130—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)189180—
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202449#18,963

Reference works 2

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

How do you pronounce Penel?
A machine transcription gives /pənɛl/ (IPA) for French.
In which country does Penel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.7 thousand people named Penel in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled penel.
How common is the name Penel?
In Switzerland, the national register counted 49 people named Penel in 2024, about 1 in 172 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Penel?

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/penel

The 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, “Penel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Penel parses inside a full name →