Armel
A French masculine name derived from the Old Breton language meaning "bear" or "bearlike".
Name Census estimates that about 227 living Americans carry the first name Armel. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Armel today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Armel births was 2023 (13 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Armel. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Armel with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
227
~ 1 in 1,509,931 Americans
Peak year
2023
13 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,472
Tracked since 1915
Census
Armel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 477 people with the first name Armel, which placed it at #21,336 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#21,336
National first-name rank
People counted
477
477 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
58.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Armel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Armel is Black at 58.7%. The next largest groups are White (13.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (11.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Armel described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Armel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American58.7% · 280
- White13.6% · 65
- Asian and Pacific Islander11.7% · 56
- Hispanic or Latino11.5% · 55
- Two or more races4.0% · 19
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 2
Popularity
Armel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Armel from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 74 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Armel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Armel by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Armel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Armel
The name Armel originates from the Breton language, which is a Celtic Brittonic language spoken in Brittany, France. It is derived from the Breton elements "ar" meaning "bear" and "mel" meaning "prince" or "chief". The name can be traced back to the 5th or 6th century AD, during the Era of Brittonic kingdoms and the Migration Period.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Saint Armel, a 6th-century Breton monk and missionary who founded the Abbey of Plouarmel in Brittany. He is venerated as the patron saint of Brittany and his feast day is celebrated on August 16th.
In the 9th century, an Armel is mentioned as the Bishop of Vannes, a town in Brittany, in the "Annals of the Abbey of Redon". This historical record provides evidence of the name's use during the Carolingian period in medieval France.
During the Middle Ages, the name Armel was primarily used in Brittany and other regions with strong Celtic cultural influences. One notable bearer was Armel de Clohars, a 13th-century Breton nobleman and crusader who participated in the Seventh Crusade led by King Louis IX of France (1226-1270).
In the Renaissance period, the name Armel gained some popularity among French nobility. A prominent figure was Armel de Châteauneuf (1472-1547), a French nobleman and military commander who served under King Francis I of France during the Italian Wars.
Another notable Armel was Armel Beaufils (1679-1750), a French historian and ecclesiastical writer who authored several works on the history of Brittany and the Catholic Church in the 18th century.
Throughout history, the name Armel has remained primarily associated with individuals of Breton or French descent, although it has occasionally been used in other cultural contexts as well.
People
Armel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Armel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Armel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Armel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 227 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Armel going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,509,931 US residents.
Is Armel a common name?
We classify Armel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 75.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 267 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Armel most popular?
The single biggest year for Armel was 2023, when 13 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Armel is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Armel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 477 people with the name Armel, or 0.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #21,336 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Armel in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Armel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Armel leans strongly male. 431 people counted with this name were male (90.4%), compared with 46 female bearers (9.6%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Armel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Armel is Black at 58.7%. The next largest groups are White (13.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (11.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Armel most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Armel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.7% (280 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Armel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Armel a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Armel in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Armel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Armel in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Armel can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Armel?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Armel at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.