Gaynell
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Gaynell has been given to 4,269 babies in the U.S. since 1886. 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 1952, with 117 recorded.
Babies named Gaynell, 1991
1 in 779,000
Gaynell over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Gaynell?
Gaynell had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1991, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1991
- 1 in 779,000
- 5 of 3,892,928 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 375,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1991
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 539,676 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Gaynell sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1991 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 539,676 children born in 1991 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Gaynell. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Gaynells were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Gaynell was born before 1943 — so the typical Gaynell is around 82 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1950s
- 21.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 7.0%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,555
- People you could plausibly meet
1950s — 21.1% of all recorded uses (896).
Is Gaynell 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 1952 (117)
- Years since peak
- 73
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 27.4% average annual change
Spellings of Gaynell
Gaynell is not the most common spelling — Janell is, with 41.9% against Gaynell's 11.3%.
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 Gaynell is used
Across 1910–2025, Gaynell was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 4,545 girls, against 1 in 46,129 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Louisiana1 in 4,545
- 2Alabama1 in 9,091
- 3Virginia1 in 14,286
- 4North Carolina1 in 16,667
- 5Georgia1 in 25,000
- 6West Virginia1 in 25,000
- 7Kentucky1 in 50,000
- 8South Carolina1 in 50,000
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. Gaynell has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Gaynell by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a girl's name
Names similar to Gaynell
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Gaynell
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Gaynell, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Gaynell
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.