Montrel
Masculine · “French mont”
Montreal is Mount Royal. Jacques Cartier climbed the hill behind the Iroquoian town of Hochelaga in 1535 and named it Mont Royal, spelled Mont Real in the French of the time, and the city took the hill's name rather than the other way round.
How old is the name Montrel?
Montrel first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Montrel alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 1,000 people named Montrel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Montrel most popular?
Montrel peaked in 1993, reaching #1601 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,113 places below that high. See the whole 1993 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From mons to Montrel
The story of Montrel
Cartier reached the island in October 1535, was received at the fortified Iroquoian town of Hochelaga, and was taken up the hill behind it, which he named Mont Royal in honor of Francis I. Sixteenth-century French wrote it Mont Real, real being the older form of royal. When Ville-Marie was founded on the site in 1642 it gradually took the hill's name instead, and Montreal is now the name of the city and Mont Royal of the park at its center, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Hochelaga had disappeared by the time Champlain arrived in 1603, for reasons that are still argued. The name of one of the largest French-speaking cities in the world therefore comes from a mountain that is barely two hundred meters high and from a spelling that French itself has since abandoned.
Meaningscholars disagree
French mont, a mountain
Montrel is an American formation on the Mont- element, from French mont, a mountain, seen in Montreal, Montgomery and Montrell, with the -rel ending. Neither element carries meaning in this combination. Mont descends from Latin mons, montis. The peak is 1993.
How the name formed
- mons
- mont
- Montrel
Related forms: Montrell · Montrail
Pronouncing Montrel
mon-TREL
Two syllables, stress on the second. Montrel and Montrell are homophones; the doubled l is the commoner spelling.
Nicknames for Montrel
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
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 199356 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1601reached in 1993
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%7 in 2025, from 5
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.
Montrel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Montrell in English — spelling variant
- Montrail in English — spelling variant
Montrels among us
people named Montrel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Montrel
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Montrel
- #9714
- Montrel on the 2025 chart
- #896
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Montrel went to 7 boys in 2025, but Montrell is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 32, which makes it the 896th most-given boys’ name of the year — 8,818 places above the chart.
- Montrell25
- Montrel7
About 1 boy in 53,377 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 244,011 for Montrel itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Alban test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Montrel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alban climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alban's path sketches the road Montrel is walking now.
Montrel 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
Montrel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Montrel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Monte and Trel are both usable short forms.
- The stressed ending gives it a firm final beat.
- The Mont- element is familiar from many place names.
- Montrell is the commoner spelling.
- It has no meaning of its own.
- The 1993 peak dates it to a narrow window.
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Montrel
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Montrels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Montrel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Montrel?
- Montrel is one of 2 recorded spellings. Montrell is the more common one — 25 births in 2025 against 7 for Montrel.
- How popular is the name Montrel in 2025?
- Montrel ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Montrel?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Montrel — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Montrel with classmates?
- Montrel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Montrel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Montrel? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Montrel and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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