Neil

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Neil is a given name, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 99th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Form of Niall; used more in Scotland but increasingly in Ireland.

rarermore common
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 606◐
  • NZNew Zealand1 in 823
  • AUAustralia1 in 917

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈99K ●

across 9 countries

4 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
528 ●

1.7M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.1K ◐

Guyana

Spellings & scripts●

NeilLatin · English●1.7M records
নীলBengali · Bangla●7.5K records
ᲜეილGeorgian · Georgian●3 records
네일Hangul · Korean●0 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled নীল in BD Bangladesh and Nil in NG Nigeria.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Form of Niall; used more in Scotland but increasingly in Ireland.

Sources 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Neil is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom#99340,923242K rec.—listedNeil290
AU Australia#182126,35199K rec.—74Neil259
US United States#41080,9191.1M rec.1 in 4.1K81KNeil528
PH Philippines#31468,16055K rec.——Neil155
CA Canada#28045,86244K rec.—6Neil209
ZA South Africa#24612,81912K rec.——Neil128
ES Spain—12,328△4.6K rec.1 in 4.1K12KNeil119
BD Bangladesh#40111,82915K rec.——নীল36
NZ New Zealand#6110,4067.9K rec.——Neil137
NG Nigeria#9786,473337 rec.——Nil30
IE Ireland#1926,1684.5K rec.——Neil137
DE Germany—5,8836K rec.—1Neil129

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.7M82%
  • Spanish96K5%
  • French29K1%
  • 27K1%
  • Portuguese25K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,686,36582%
Spanish96,4295%
French29,4021%
26,8581%
Portuguese25,2561%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Neil is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name188K records spelled Neil30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, France, United Kingdom

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Neïl, Néil, Neíl, Nèil, Ñêïl

  • Polish given name11K records spelled Neil21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United Kingdom, United States, Poland, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Нейл, Неиль, Неіл, Нэил, Нэйл

  • Greek given name3.0K records spelled Neil3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa

    Also written Nil, Νιλ

80 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Neil is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • origin, Gael. Niall (gen. Neill), thought to mean ‘Cham¬ pion’. This was adopted by Norsemen in the form Njdll, and was brought to England both directly from Ireland by Scandinavian settlers and indirectly by the Normans. Among the latter it had taken the form Ni(h)el, which was altered by folk etymology to the L form Nigellus (see Nigel).

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • A form of Niall. It is used more in Scotland, but it is increasing in Ireland. Neal is a variant.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • reduced form of McNeil or variant of Neill.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, shortened form of McNeil and O’Neil.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In English, Irish Gaelic; champion

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

05001K1.5K2K1900195020002K · 1954

Show as table
Neil in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
188024
18816
188219
188323
188423
188526
188624
188721
188823
188928
189029
189125
189236
189328
189430
189531
189647
189726
189835
189926
190050
190132
190228
190328
190441
190542
190637
190742
190855
190943
191054
191158
1912151
1913184
1914232
1915289
1916375
1917356
1918359
1919366
1920489
1921497
1922489
1923508
1924541
1925563
1926600
1927609
1928696
1929696
1930827
1931881
1932934
1933997
1934953
1935858
1936913
1937969
19381,066
19391,068
19401,067
19411,074
19421,101
19431,155
19441,140
19451,210
19461,343
19471,460
19481,406
19491,471
19501,609
19511,755
19521,904
19531,937
19541,959
19551,785
19561,747
19571,676
19581,711
19591,632
19601,446
19611,524
19621,291
19631,448
19641,527
19651,321
19661,227
19671,155
19681,049
19691,680
19701,567
19711,422
19721,304
19731,297
19741,323
19751,331
19761,354
19771,429
19781,527
19791,486
19801,348
19811,330
19821,342
19831,226
19841,125
19851,206
19861,152
19871,078
1988999
19891,027
19901,028
1991918
1992791
1993784
1994704
1995678
1996579
1997526
1998489
1999490
2000462
2001443
2002381
2003384
2004338
2005380
2006398
2007305
2008327
2009396
2010342
2011358
2012391
2013394
2014397
2015414
2016425
2017422
2018427
2019422
2020324
2021360
2022330
2023305
2024280
2025288

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

19201940196019802000Neil Armstrong, b. 1930Neil Diamond, b. 1941Neil Young, b. 1945Neil Jordan, b. 1950Neil Gaiman, b. 1960Neil Dudgeon, b. 1961Neil Gorsuch, b. 1967Neil Patrick Harris, b. 1973Neil Druckmann, b. 1978Central Cee, b. 1998
  • Neil Armstrongb. 1930USAmerican astronaut and lunar explorer (1930–2012)
  • Neil Diamondb. 1941USAmerican recording artist; singer-songwriter
  • Neil Youngb. 1945CACanadian singer, songwriter and filmmaker (born 1945)
  • Neil Jordanb. 1950IEIrish filmmaker and fiction writer
  • Neil Gaimanb. 1960GBEnglish writer (born 1960)
  • Neil Dudgeonb. 1961GBBritish actor
  • Neil Gorsuchb. 1967USAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2017 (born 1967)
  • Neil Patrick Harrisb. 1973USAmerican actor (born 1973)
  • Neil Druckmannb. 1978USIsraeli-American video game designer (born 1978)
  • Central Ceeb. 1998GBnot in their usual nameBritish rapper (born 1998)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 108 sources across 58 countries.

Official registers attesting Neil
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202081K#650
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201010K#3,496
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020209.4K#3,671
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020009.2K#3,544
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20242.5K#725
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—751#11,056
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022712—
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 20252025686#119
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—675#3,752
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—666#10,467
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—647#1,740
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—559#2,559

Reference works 7

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,140 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Neil?
We estimate roughly 99 thousand people bear Neil (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Neil have the most bearers?
Neil is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled neil.
How common is Neil compared with other names?
In the United Kingdom, Neil is the 99th most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
Is Neil a male or female name?
Neil is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Neil mean?
Recorded meaning: Form of Niall; used more in Scotland but increasingly in Ireland.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/neil

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Neil” — the 99th most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Neil parses inside a full name →