Name Awesome

Cornel

Boys' name

Form of Cornelius

Cornel has been given to 1,174 babies in the U.S. since 1919. 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 1947, with 59 recorded.

Babies named Cornel, 2024

1 in 557,000

Cornel over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Cornel: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Cornelius

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Cornel means

Cornel is a form of Cornelius.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Cornel is used in Romanian.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Cornel → Cornelius. The family’s proposed meaning is “horn”, recorded in the naming reference for Cornelius.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Cornelius and Corneliu.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,174 boys were recorded with the name Cornel between 1919 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 59 in 1947; its best national rank was #906 in 1947.

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 Cornel?

Cornel 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 557,000
6 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 287,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
386,177 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Cornel sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

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 386,177 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Cornel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Cornels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Cornel was born before 1961 — so the typical Cornel is around 64 today.

Median birth year
1961
About 64 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
22.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.7%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
889
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 22.4% of all recorded uses (263).

Is Cornel 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 1947 (59)
Years since peak
78
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
27.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#906
1947

Spellings of Cornel

Cornel is not the most common spelling — Corey is, with 60.4% against Cornel's 0.38%.

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 Cornel is used

Across 1910–2025, Cornel was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 696,784 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4Michigan1 in —
  5. 5New Jersey1 in —
  6. 6New York1 in —
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 in —
  8. 8Virginia1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Cornel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Cornel around the world

Where Cornel 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
    2009–2019
    #4,702
    in 2019
  • France
    2015–2015
    #5,620
    in 2015
  • South Australia
    1974–1974
    #455
    in 1974

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

Cornel by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#906
1947
Peak year
1947
59 that year
First recorded
1919
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
1,174
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Cornel

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

CorrieCorbenCorvinCordaeCorbyCorinCorbynCorbanCormacCorderoCorwinCorreyCordeCordaleCorbettCoriCortneyCornelioCordCortCorradoCortlandCorieCorwyn

Sibling names for Cornel

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 Cornel

Top names of 1947, Cornel's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1947Boys' names starting with CRomanian Boy NamesRomanian Names