Reel

surname · Latin script

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

Reel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: A shaky or unsteady gait.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 63K(measured from records)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 95K
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 50K

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)

5,316 people, 2010

Sources
310 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 50K (inferred from the name graph)

Singapore, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

A shaky or unsteady gait.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Reel 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 Reel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States5,3161 in 63K5.3KReel310
GB United Kingdom≈700 est.≈1 in 95K137Reel74
IT Italy≈470 est.≈1 in 132K—Reel3
CA Canada≈400 est.≈1 in 95K—Reel36
ZA South Africa≈320 est.≈1 in 175K—Reel6
SG Singapore≈130 est.≈1 in 50K—Reel3
IE Ireland≈100 est.≈1 in 52K—Reel25

5,316 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)

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

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Italian

    Also written Réel, Rèel

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Türkiye

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Réel

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Réel

  • Arabic surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Tunisia, Türkiye, United Kingdom

    Also written Réel, Reêl, Réèl, Réél

45 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)

Reel is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Romanian, obsolete form of real

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

  • In Danish, real, proper

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

  • In aot, rains

    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)

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 23 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Reel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020105.3K#6,399
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020005.3K#6,018
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.9K#6,638
GB United KingdomSurnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)2002137#27,114
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Reel mean, and where does it come from?
A shaky or unsteady gait. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Reel have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 5.3 thousand people named Reel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled reel.
How common is the name Reel?
In the United States, the national register counted 5,316 people named Reel in 2010, about 1 in 63 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Reel?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/reel

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Reel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Reel parses inside a full name →