Amel
A feminine name of Arabic origin meaning "hope" or "dream".
Name Census estimates that about 881 living Americans carry the first name Amel. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 57.4% of registrations being male. The average person named Amel today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Amel births was 2000 (41 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Amel. 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 Amel with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Amel sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
881
~ 1 in 389,051 Americans
Peak year
2000
41 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,968
Tracked since 1914
Census
Amel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,832 people with the first name Amel, which placed it at #8,037 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
#8,037
National first-name rank
People counted
1.8K
1,832 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
66.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Amel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amel is White at 66.8%. The next largest groups are Black (16.2%) and Hispanic (11.0%). 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 Amel 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 Amel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White66.8% · 1,223
- Black or African American16.2% · 296
- Hispanic or Latino11.0% · 201
- Two or more races3.5% · 64
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 44
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Amel
Amel is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,081 total registrations, 621 (57.4%) were male and 460 (42.6%) were female.
Amel as a male name
- Ranked #8,327 in 2024
- 9 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2001 (21 births)
Amel as a female name
- Ranked #7,968 in 2024
- 13 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2000 (24 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Amel on both sides of the split. Of the 1,833 people counted with this name, 740 were male (40.4%) and 1,093 were female (59.6%).
Popularity
Amel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Amel from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 300 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Amel remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Amel 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 Amel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Amels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. New York, Texas, New Jersey recorded the most babies named Amel, while New Jersey, Texas, New York recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 14 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Amel
The name Amel is derived from the Arabic word 'amal', which means 'hope' or 'aspiration'. Its origins can be traced back to the Middle East and the Islamic world, where it was commonly used as a name for both boys and girls. The earliest recorded instances of the name date back to the 7th century AD, during the time of the Islamic conquests and the spread of the Arabic language across the region.
One of the earliest known historical figures to bear the name Amel was Amel ibn al-Mundhir, a 7th-century Arab poet and warrior from the Ghassanid kingdom, which ruled parts of modern-day Syria and Jordan. He was renowned for his martial prowess and his poetic talents, which were celebrated in the court of the Ghassanid rulers.
In the 9th century, Amel ibn Idris al-Khurasani was a prominent Islamic scholar and jurist from Khurasan, a historical region that encompassed parts of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. He was known for his contributions to the study of Islamic jurisprudence and his works on the interpretation of the Quran.
During the 12th century, Amel al-Din al-Bukhari was a renowned Persian poet and mystic who lived in the city of Bukhara, which was then part of the Khwarazmian Empire. His poetry, deeply influenced by Sufism, explored themes of spirituality, love, and devotion to God.
In the 14th century, Amel al-Mulk Mirza was a prominent Persian prince and statesman who served as the governor of various provinces under the Timurid Empire. He was renowned for his patronage of the arts and his support for poets and scholars at his court.
One of the most famous historical figures to bear the name Amel was Amel Kadic, a Bosnian woman who gained international recognition for her role in the landmark legal case against Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb leaders accused of genocide during the Bosnian War. Kadic's case, filed in 1993, paved the way for future human rights litigation against state and non-state actors in international courts.
While the name Amel has its roots in the Arabic language and Islamic culture, it has since been adopted and used in various parts of the world, transcending cultural and linguistic boundaries.
People
Amel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Amel 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
Amel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Amel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 881 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Amel 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 389,051 US residents.
Is Amel a common name?
We classify Amel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 89.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,081 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Amel most popular?
The single biggest year for Amel was 2000, when 41 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Amel is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Amel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,832 people with the name Amel, or 0.61 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,037 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 Amel 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 Amel?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Amel on both sides of the split. Of the 1,833 people counted with this name, 740 were male (40.4%) and 1,093 were female (59.6%). 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 Amel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Amel is White at 66.8%. The next largest groups are Black (16.2%) and Hispanic (11.0%). 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 Amel most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Amel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.8% (1,223 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 Amel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Amel a male name?
Yes, 57.4% of people registered as Amel 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 Amel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Amel 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 Amel 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 many people are called Amel?
You can see how many people share the name Amel on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.