Carel
A masculine given name of Germanic origin meaning "freeman".
Name Census estimates that about 88 living Americans carry the first name Carel. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 73.5% of registrations being male. The average person named Carel today is around 55 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Carel births was 1940 (11 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Carel. 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.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Carel. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
88
~ 1 in 3,894,936 Americans
Peak year
1940
11 babies that year
Average age
55
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,629
Tracked since 1915
Gender
Gender distribution for Carel
Carel is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 226 total registrations, 166 (73.5%) were male and 60 (26.5%) were female.
Carel as a male name
- Ranked #9,097 in 2024
- 8 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1925 (9 births)
Carel as a female name
- Ranked #5,629 in 1959
- 6 female births in 1959
- Peak: 1949 (11 births)
Popularity
Carel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Carel from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 63 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1940s peak, Carel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Carel 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 Carel 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 Carel
Carel is a masculine given name of Dutch origin, derived from the Germanic name Carolus, which was the Latinized form of the Frankish name Karл. The name's roots can be traced back to the Proto-Germanic word "kar," meaning "man" or "warrior," and the Frankish word "hail," meaning "whole" or "unhurt." Together, these elements suggest the meaning "a strong, wholesome man."
The name gained prominence during the Carolingian dynasty, which ruled over a vast empire in Western and Central Europe from the late 8th to the late 9th century. The most notable bearer of this name was Charlemagne (c. 742-814), the Carolingian King of the Franks who became the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD. His reign marked a significant period of cultural and intellectual renaissance in Western Europe.
In the Middle Ages, the name Carel was popular among the nobility and royalty in the Low Countries (present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg). One of the earliest recorded instances of this name is Carel de Grote (c. 1467-1538), a Flemish Renaissance painter and one of the most significant representatives of the Antwerp Mannerist school.
During the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, the name Carel was particularly favored by the Dutch elite. Carel Fabritius (1622-1654) was a renowned Dutch painter and one of the most talented pupils of Rembrandt. Another notable figure was Carel Huygens (1629-1695), a Dutch Golden Age poet, composer, and scientist who made significant contributions to the development of the pendulum clock.
In the 18th century, Carel Linnaeus (1707-1778), a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician, gained international recognition for formalizing the modern system of naming and classifying organisms, known as binomial nomenclature. His work laid the foundations for the study of taxonomy and evolutionary theory.
Moving into the 20th century, Carel Willink (1900-1983) was a Dutch painter and one of the leading figures of the Amsterdam Impressionist movement. His works often depicted scenes of everyday life in Amsterdam and its surroundings.
While the name Carel has its roots in Dutch and Flemish culture, it has also been adopted and used in other parts of the world, particularly in regions with strong historical ties to the Netherlands or Belgium.
People
Carel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Carel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Carel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Carel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 88 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Carel 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 3,894,936 US residents.
Is Carel a common name?
We classify Carel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 62.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 226 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Carel most popular?
The single biggest year for Carel was 1940, when 11 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Carel is about 55 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Carel a male name?
Yes, 73.5% of people registered as Carel 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.
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.