Mandela — boys' name

What the Data Says About Mandela

The Social Security Administration has registered 172 babies named Mandela between 1984 and 2022, spanning 39 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Mandela currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2022. The name reached its historical peak in 1990, when 36 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Mandela performed strongest in the 2010s, accumulating 62 births during that ten-year window. Across the 5 decades of recorded activity, Mandela shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 5 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Georgia. In total, SSA state-level files list Mandela in 2 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Mandela in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 172 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.