Neel — #1851 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Neel

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,284 babies named Neel between 1918 and 2024, spanning 107 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Neel currently holds the #1851 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 2009, when 148 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Neel performed strongest in the 2010s, accumulating 964 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, Neel shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 550 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New Jersey and Texas. In total, SSA state-level files list Neel in 16 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Neel 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 3,284 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.