Itzel
Feminine · “Linked to Ixchel”
Itzel is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 21,316 girls against 115 boys since 1880.
Itzel comes out of the Maya world of the Yucatán, a name tied by most accounts to Ixchel, the goddess whom colonial-era Spanish chroniclers described as the patron of childbirth, medicine and weaving, and whose shrine on Cozumel drew pilgrims across the water. It is two syllables that land cleanly in Spanish and in English alike, and in the United States it has been quietly gaining ground for decades.
How old is the name Itzel?
Itzel first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Itzel alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 21,000 people named Itzel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Itzel most popular?
Itzel peaked in 2005, reaching #328 nationally. Today it ranks #359, 31 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Itzel appears on these lists:
- Names with a Z in them
- Spanish and Latin names with warmth
- Latin American and Caribbean names
- Names ending in -ell / -el
- all guides
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Itzel
The name belongs to the Yucatec Maya linguistic world, and its most-cited source, Ixchel, is documented in Maya codices and in sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the peninsula, where she appears as a goddess of childbirth and healing with a pilgrimage site on Cozumel. Itzel itself came into general use much later, in twentieth-century Mexico, during a broad turn toward Indigenous given names alongside Xóchitl, Citlali and Nayeli. From Mexico it traveled north with Mexican-American families, and it has been on US records for decades — spelled the same way on both sides of the border. Its rise here has been gradual and steady rather than sudden.
Meaningscholars disagree
Linked to Ixchel, a Maya goddess; also read through Maya itz, 'dew, nectar, sap'
Two serious readings compete. The most common holds Itzel to be a modern form of Ixchel (Ix Chel), the Yucatec Maya goddess of the moon, medicine, weaving and childbirth. The other works from the Maya root itz, which covers dew, nectar, resin and sap — the fluid that seeps from a plant. Popular lists often print 'rainbow lady' as a flat translation; that gloss is not supported by the Maya language itself. An unsettled name is a fuller one here, not a broken one.
Pronouncing Itzel
eet-SEL
Spanish stress falls on the second syllable, and the tz is one quick ts sound, as in 'cats'. English speakers commonly say it-ZELL, which most families accept without correcting.
Nicknames for Itzel
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
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 2005976 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #328reached in 2005
- Change vs 2024
- +2.7%850 in 2025, from 828
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.
Itzel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Itzel in Spanish (Mexico) — same name
- Ixchel in Yucatec Maya — related form
- Itzayana in Spanish (Mexico) — related form
- Itzell in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Illinois.
Itzels among us
people named Itzel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,891 born in 2025 was named Itzel
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 Tamra test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Itzel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tamra climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tamra's path sketches the road Itzel is walking now.
Itzel is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Itzel is headed
Itzel looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 22% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Itzel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Itzel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, two syllables, and spelled exactly as it sounds in Spanish — no silent letters and no competing spellings in wide use.
- Works in both Spanish and English mouths without changing form, which matters in bilingual families.
- Rooted in a documented Maya naming tradition rather than invented recently, so it has real history behind it.
- Uncommon enough in the US that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, while being entirely familiar in Mexican-American communities.
- English speakers who have not met the name usually guess it-ZELL rather than eet-SEL. Both are in use, so decide early which one your family will answer to, because the correction is a lifelong small task otherwise.
- The meaning is genuinely unsettled. If you want a name whose translation you can state in one line to relatives, this one will always come with a footnote — and the popular 'rainbow lady' gloss is not something the Maya language supports.
- Over the phone it is often heard as Itzayana, Ixchel or Isabel, and the tz can come back written as ts or z.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Itzel
Feminine · #359 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Itzels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 21,000 people named Itzel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Itzel in 2025?
- Itzel ranks #359 among US girl names in 2025, with 850 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Itzel?
- About 1 in every 1,891 US girls born in 2025 was named Itzel — 850 in all.
- Will my child share the name Itzel with classmates?
- Itzel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Itzel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Gwendolyn#360 · Camilla#361 · Briella#362 · Ariel#355 · Kamila#355 · Wrenlee#355 · Adelyn#355 · Helena#363
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Itzel? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Itzel and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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