Name Awesome

Christel

Girls' name

A Christian person, a Christian, through Christelle

Christel has been given to 3,712 babies in the U.S. since 1912. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1978, with 202 recorded.

Babies named Christel, 2024

1 in 279,000

Christel over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Christel: meaning, origin, and history

A Christian person, a Christian, through Christelle

German

What Christel means

Christel belongs to the name family reached through Christel → Christelle → Christine → Chrīstiāna. Its meaning is “a Christian person, a Christian”.

Origin, language, and formation

Christel is used in Danish, French, German, Icelandic and Swedish. Its origins include German.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Christelle, Christine, Christiane, Christian and Chrīstiāna.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,712 girls were recorded with the name Christel between 1912 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 202 in 1978; its best national rank was #763 in 1978.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Christel?

Christel had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 279,000
12 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 135,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
193,089 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Christel sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2024 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 193,089 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Christel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Christels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Christel was born before 1975 — so the typical Christel is around 50 today.

Median birth year
1975
About 50 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
41.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
3,485
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 41.5% of all recorded uses (1,542).

Is Christel rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1978 (202)
Years since peak
47
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#763
1978

Spellings of Christel

Christel is not the most common spelling — Christy is, with 33.9% against Christel's 1.3%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Christel is used

Across 1910–2025, Christel was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 92,431 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 50,000
  2. 2Illinois1 in 50,000
  3. 3Missouri1 in 50,000
  4. 4North Carolina1 in 50,000
  5. 5South Carolina1 in 50,000
  6. 6Alabama1 in 100,000
  7. 7Florida1 in 100,000
  8. 8Kentucky1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Christel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Christel around the world

Where Christel ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1998–2018
    #5,666
    in 2018
  • France
    1938–2017
    #7,070
    in 2017
  • Norway
    1880–2017
    #481
    in 2017
  • Canada
    1991–2021
    #3,354
    in 2021
  • South Australia
    1945–2002
    #730
    in 2002

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Christel

People whose public names include Christel, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Christel in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Christel. Linked forms have their own page here.

ChristlCristelChristelle

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Christel by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#763
1978
Peak year
1978
202 that year
First recorded
1912
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
3,712
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Christel

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

ChrissyChristalChristenChristynChrystelChrystalChrislynKristelChristanChristenaChristeneChristeenChristinChristiannaChristianChrissieChristieChristianaChristelleChrislynnChristiaChristaShantelChristabel

Names with a curve like Christel

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Christel, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

ToyaAngellaWindyCarieShonnaTawannaTawandaCandidaSpringRolandaTawnyaCristi

Sibling names for Christel

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Christel

Top names of 1978, Christel's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1978Girls' names starting with C