Oriel
A feminine name derived from Latin, meaning "golden-haired".
Name Census estimates that about 396 living Americans carry the first name Oriel. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 68.5% of registrations being male. The average person named Oriel today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Oriel births was 2024 (35 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Oriel. 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 Oriel with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Oriel was once a predominantly female name but has become increasingly popular for boys in recent decades.
People living today
396
~ 1 in 865,541 Americans
Peak year
2024
35 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,745
Tracked since 1915
Census
Oriel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 579 people with the first name Oriel, which placed it at #18,565 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
#18,565
National first-name rank
People counted
579
579 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
41.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Oriel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Oriel is Hispanic at 41.3%. The next largest groups are White (26.9%) and Black (23.7%). 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 Oriel 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 Oriel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino41.3% · 239
- White26.9% · 156
- Black or African American23.7% · 137
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.4% · 31
- Two or more races1.9% · 11
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 5
Gender
Gender distribution for Oriel
Oriel is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 429 total registrations, 294 (68.5%) were male and 135 (31.5%) were female.
Oriel as a male name
- Ranked #3,745 in 2024
- 30 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2023 (33 births)
Oriel as a female name
- Ranked #17,012 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1983 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Oriel on both sides of the split. Of the 583 people counted with this name, 394 were male (67.6%) and 189 were female (32.4%).
Popularity
Oriel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Oriel from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 124 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Oriel 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 Oriel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Oriels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. New York, Florida, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Oriel, while Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 12 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Oriel
The name Oriel is derived from the Old French word 'oriol', which means a small room or study located on an upper floor, or a gallery or porch attached to a building. The name itself has its roots in the Latin word 'oriolum', meaning a small room or apartment.
Oriel is believed to have originated as a given name in England during the Middle Ages, around the 12th or 13th century. It was likely initially used as a descriptive surname for someone who lived or worked in an oriel, before eventually becoming adopted as a first name.
One of the earliest recorded uses of Oriel as a given name can be found in the 14th century, when a monk named Oriel de Bohun lived and worked at the Benedictine monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England.
In the 15th century, the name gained some prominence when Oriel College was founded at the University of Oxford in 1326. The college was named after a wealthy benefactor, Adam de Brome, whose family home was called "Le Oriel".
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Oriel. One was Oriel Rokeby (1625-1696), an English lawyer and landowner who served as a Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorkshire, in the late 17th century.
Another was Oriel Williamson (1781-1860), a British clergyman and academic who served as the Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge from 1814 to 1860.
In the 19th century, Oriel was the name of a character in the novel "The Heir of Redclyffe" by Charlotte M. Yonge, published in 1853. This literary reference may have contributed to the name's continued use during that period.
A more recent example is Oriel Gray (1920-2005), a British actress who appeared in numerous films and television shows throughout the mid-20th century, including roles in "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1952) and "The Quatermass Xperiment" (1955).
Finally, Oriel Moresby (1925-2012) was a British naval officer and author, best known for his books on maritime history and naval operations during World War II.
People
Oriel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Oriel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with O
Other first names starting with O with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Oriel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Oriel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 396 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Oriel 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 865,541 US residents.
Is Oriel a common name?
We classify Oriel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 429 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Oriel most popular?
The single biggest year for Oriel was 2024, when 35 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Oriel is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Oriel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 579 people with the name Oriel, or 0.19 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #18,565 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 Oriel 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 Oriel?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Oriel on both sides of the split. Of the 583 people counted with this name, 394 were male (67.6%) and 189 were female (32.4%). 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 Oriel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Oriel is Hispanic at 41.3%. The next largest groups are White (26.9%) and Black (23.7%). 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 Oriel most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Oriel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 41.3% (239 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 Oriel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Oriel a male name?
Yes, 68.5% of people registered as Oriel 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 Oriel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Oriel 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 Oriel 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 Oriel?
Find out how many people have the name Oriel on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.