Russell
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Rousel, literally ‘little Rouse’, an Anglo-Norman nickname for a red-haired person
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹʌsəl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Russell is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 730(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 929
- AUAustralia≈1 in 953
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)
- #455 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 613 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 730 (inferred from the name graph)
202,735 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
From Rousel, literally ‘little Rouse’, an Anglo-Norman nickname for a red-haired person.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Russell 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 | #191 | 202,735 | 1 in 1.6K | 222K | Russell | 613 |
| GB United Kingdom | #182 | ≈71,000 est. | ≈1 in 929 | 4 | Russell | 346 |
| KP North Korea | #136 | ≈31,000 est. | ≈1 in 834 | — | Russell | 3 |
| CA Canada | #219 | ≈31,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 17 | Russell | 282 |
| IT Italy | #380 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | 1 | Russell | 64 |
| AU Australia | #191 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 953 | 75 | Russell | 258 |
| NZ New Zealand | #116 | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 730 | 11 | Russell | 152 |
| IE Ireland | #141 | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Russell | 112 |
202,735 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); 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)
Russell 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.
In English, ANF nickname for someone with red hair, representing a dim. of Rouse with the hypocoristic suffix -el. Vars.: Russel, Rous(s)el(l), Rowsell, Russill. Cogns.: Fr.: Roussel, Rouxel, Leroussel, Rousseau(x), Lerousseau. It.: Rosselli, Rossi(e)llo, Russello. Cat.: Ros(s)ell. Dims.: Fr.: Rouselet, Rousselin, Rousselot. It.: Rossellini. Patrs.: Fr.: Aurousseau. Flem.: Rosseels.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, An English, Scottish and Irish surname transferred from the nickname from the Norman nickname for someone with red hair.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Bertrand, British intellectual {Nobel
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Old French; red-haired
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Piccolo [uomo] rosso
as a nameIl grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…
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)
- John Russell Hindb. 1823GBEnglish astronomer
- Kim Philbyb. 1912GBnot in their usual nameKGB mole for the Soviet Union (1912–1988)
- Leon Russellb. 1942USAmerican singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist and session musician
- Russi Taylorb. 1944USnot in their usual nameAmerican voice actress (1944–2019)
- Russell Hulseb. 1950USAmerican astronomer
- Russell Croweb. 1964NZNew Zealand actor
- Rick Riordanb. 1964USnot in their usual nameAmerican author (born 1964)
- Russell Brandb. 1975GBEnglish comedian, actor, and podcaster (born 1975)
- Andrew Garfieldb. 1983USnot in their usual nameEnglish and American actor (born 1983)
- Russell Westbrookb. 1988USAmerican basketball player (born 1988)
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)
Attested in 97 sources across 47 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 222K | #104 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 215K | #93 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 212K | #108 |
Reference works 8
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- What does the name Russell mean, and where does it come from?
- From Rousel, literally ‘little Rouse’, an Anglo-Norman nickname for a red-haired person. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Russell a male or female name?
- Russell is a male 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.
- In which country does Russell have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 203 thousand people named Russell, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled russell.
- How common is the name Russell?
- In the United States, the national register counted 202,735 people named Russell in 2020, about 1 in 1.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Russell compared with other names?
- In the United States, Russell is the 191st most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Russell?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹʌsəl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Russell?
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/russellThe 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, “Russell” — the 191st most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.