Arnell
A masculine English name derived from an Irish surname meaning "eagle".
Name Census estimates that about 1,342 living Americans carry the first name Arnell. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 61.6% of registrations being male. The average person named Arnell today is around 51 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Arnell births was 1962 (47 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Arnell. 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
- • Arnell sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
1.3K
~ 1 in 255,406 Americans
Peak year
1962
47 babies that year
Average age
51
years old
2022 SSA rank
#9,911
Tracked since 1910
Census
Arnell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,193 people with the first name Arnell, which placed it at #10,953 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
#10,953
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2K
1,193 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
69.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Arnell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arnell is Black at 69.1%. The next largest groups are White (15.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.4%). 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 Arnell 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 Arnell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American69.1% · 824
- White15.7% · 187
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.4% · 76
- Hispanic or Latino4.2% · 50
- Two or more races3.1% · 37
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.6% · 19
Gender
Gender distribution for Arnell
Arnell is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,080 total registrations, 1,282 (61.6%) were male and 798 (38.4%) were female.
Arnell as a male name
- Ranked #9,911 in 2022
- 7 male births in 2022
- Peak: 1961 (28 births)
Arnell as a female name
- Ranked #12,599 in 1998
- 6 female births in 1998
- Peak: 1962 (22 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Arnell on both sides of the split. Of the 1,194 people counted with this name, 746 were male (62.5%) and 448 were female (37.5%).
Popularity
Arnell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Arnell from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 302 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Arnell 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 Arnell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Arnells live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Illinois, Texas, Alabama recorded the most babies named Arnell, while Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 12 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Arnell
The name Arnell is believed to have originated from the Old Norse language, which was spoken by the Germanic peoples who inhabited Scandinavia and parts of northern Europe during the Viking Age, roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. It is thought to be a combination of the Old Norse elements "arn," meaning eagle, and "ell," meaning strength or power.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Arnell can be found in the Icelandic Sagas, a collection of historical narratives and legends that date back to the 13th century. In these texts, the name appears in various spellings, such as "Arnell," "Arnill," and "Arnaldr."
During the Middle Ages, the name Arnell was predominantly used in Scandinavia and the regions influenced by Norse culture, such as parts of modern-day Scotland, Ireland, and northern England. It was particularly popular among the Viking settlers who established communities in these areas.
One notable historical figure who bore the name Arnell was Arnell Tordsson, a Norwegian chieftain and landowner who lived in the late 10th century. He is mentioned in the Orkneyinga Saga, a historical narrative that details the Norse colonization of the Orkney Islands.
Another individual of note was Arnell Þorkelsson, an Icelandic skald (poet) and lawspeaker who lived in the 11th century. He is recorded in the Landnámabók, an Icelandic manuscript that chronicles the settlement of Iceland by Norse settlers in the 9th and 10th centuries.
In the 12th century, an Arnell Arnmodsson is mentioned in the Hákonar Saga Herðibreiðs, a saga about the Norwegian king Håkon Herdebrei. Arnell Arnmodsson was a chieftain and landowner from western Norway.
The name Arnell also appears in medieval English records, such as the Domesday Book of 1086, where an individual named Arnell is listed as a landowner in Yorkshire.
During the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, the name Arnell was primarily associated with individuals of Scandinavian or Norse descent, reflecting the cultural and linguistic roots of the name. As the name spread beyond its original geographical boundaries, it evolved into various spellings and variations, some of which are still in use today.
People
Arnell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Arnell 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
Arnell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Arnell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,342 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Arnell 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 255,406 US residents.
Is Arnell a common name?
We classify Arnell as "Rare". It ranks above 91.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,080 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Arnell most popular?
The single biggest year for Arnell was 1962, when 47 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Arnell is about 51 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Arnell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,193 people with the name Arnell, or 0.39 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,953 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 Arnell 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 Arnell?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Arnell on both sides of the split. Of the 1,194 people counted with this name, 746 were male (62.5%) and 448 were female (37.5%). 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 Arnell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arnell is Black at 69.1%. The next largest groups are White (15.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.4%). 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 Arnell most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Arnell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.1% (824 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 Arnell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Arnell a male name?
Yes, 61.6% of people registered as Arnell 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 Arnell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Arnell 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 Arnell 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 named Arnell?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.