Carmel
Masculine · “Hebrew "garden”
Carmel is given to both — 1,393 boys and 7,216 girls since 1880. See Carmel as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Carmel is a mountain in Israel, and in America it changed sex crossing the Atlantic. In Italy and Ireland Carmel and Carmelo are men's names taken from a title of the Virgin; in the United States Carmel became overwhelmingly female, and the male figures peak in 1918.
How old is the name Carmel?
Carmel first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Carmel alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 500 people named Carmel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carmel most popular?
Carmel peaked in 1918, reaching #949 nationally. Today it ranks #7194, 6,245 places below that high. See the whole 1918 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From karmel to Carmel
The story of Carmel
Marian titles have produced a whole class of given names — Carmen, Dolores, Mercedes, Rosario, Pilar, Concepción — and most of them are feminine because the title belongs to the Virgin. Carmel is unusual in having a masculine line as well: Italian and Maltese families use Carmelo and Carmine for boys, and Irish families used Carmel for girls after the Carmelite mission there. In American records both sexes appear, and the split follows the community: the male Carmels of the 1910s and 1920s are largely Italian-American, while the female Carmels that follow are largely Irish-American. The California town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, named by Spanish Carmelites in 1602, is a separate route into the name.
Meaning
Hebrew "garden, orchard" — literally a fertile field
From Hebrew karmel, a garden or planted field, used as the name of the coastal mountain ridge in northern Israel. The mountain is associated with the prophet Elijah, and from the twelfth century with the Carmelite order founded there. The name reached Catholic Europe not as a place name but through the Marian title Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whose feast is 16 July — which is why it is a personal name in Italy, Spain, Malta and Ireland and not elsewhere.
How the name formed
- karmel
- Carmelus
- Carmelo
- Carmel
Related forms: Carmelo · Carmelo · כַּרְמֶל · Carmine
Pronouncing Carmel
KAR-mel
Two syllables, stress on the first — not the second, which produces the caramel-candy sound. Hebrew stresses the second syllable, kar-MEL. Italian Carmelo is kar-MEH-lo.
Nicknames for Carmel
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1906
- Most boys named
- 191849 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #949reached in 1918
- Change vs 2023
- +57.1%11 in 2025, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Carmel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carmelo in Italian — same name
- Carmelo in Spanish — same name
- כַּרְמֶל in Hebrew — same name
- Carmine in Italian — related form
Carmels among us
people named Carmel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was named Carmel
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ancil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carmel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ancil climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ancil's path sketches the road Carmel is walking now.
Carmel sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Carmel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carmel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and concrete: a fertile garden on a named mountain.
- It carries an unbroken religious history from the Hebrew Bible to the present.
- It is short, easy to spell and easy to say.
- In the United States it now reads as a girl's name to most people.
- It is easily confused with caramel in speech.
- The masculine use depends on a specific Italian or Maltese context to read correctly.
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What they receive
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Carmel
Masculine · #7194 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carmels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Carmel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Carmel in 2025?
- Carmel ranks #7194 among US boy names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carmel?
- About 1 in every 155,280 US boys born in 2025 was named Carmel — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carmel with classmates?
- Carmel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carmel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Junius#7194 · Orie#7194 · Shade#7194 · Chesley#7194 · Joesph#7194 · Lofton#7194 · Macon#7194 · Benjiman#7194
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carmel? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carmel and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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