Maybell
Feminine · “lovable”
Maybell takes a single old name and splits it into two English words that were never inside it. Mabel has no May in it and no bell; it is one word with a lost first syllable. Written this way it becomes a compound, and the compound reads as a description of a month and an object.
How old is the name Maybell?
Maybell first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Maybell alive today was born around 1919, making them about 106 years old. About 300 people named Maybell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maybell most popular?
Maybell peaked in 1895, reaching #488 nationally. See the whole 1895 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Amabel to Maybell
The story of Maybell
The name has one very large monument that nobody recognizes as one. In the nineteen-tens a young American chemist watched his sister mix coal dust with petroleum jelly to darken her lashes, turned the idea into a product, and named the company after her and the jelly together. Her name was Mabel. The company is now one of the largest cosmetics businesses in the world and its name is on shelves in almost every country, spelled in a way that keeps her name visible to anyone who looks for it. It is probably the most widely printed tribute to an ordinary private person in commercial history, and almost nobody who reads it daily knows there was a sister.
Meaning
lovable
The source is a Latin adjective meaning lovable, which reached English as a name with its opening syllable already worn away. Neither of the two English words this spelling appears to contain has anything to do with it.
How the name formed
- Amabel
- Mabel
- Maybell
Pronouncing Maybell
MAY-bel
Two syllables with the stress at the front, said exactly as Mabel is said. The respelling changes what the name looks like it is made of, not how it sounds.
Nicknames for Maybell
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 191973 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #488reached in 1895
- Change vs 2021
- −14.3%6 in 2024, 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.
Maybells among us
people named Maybell are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Maybell sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The spelling supplies two short forms that the original does not have.
- Both halves are familiar words, so nothing needs spelling out twice.
- The sound is soft and settled and never mispronounced.
- Mabel is the standard form and this one will be corrected to it constantly.
- The apparent compound points at a month and an object rather than at the meaning.
- The generation that used it is now very old and the name carries that plainly.
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What they receive
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Maybell
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Maybells are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Maybell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Maybell in 2025?
- Maybell is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Maybell with classmates?
- Maybell will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maybell? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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