Itzel

About Itzel

Itzel is a feminine name associated with Maya naming, although its exact meaning is uncertain. Proposed explanations connect it with Classic Maya itz or with the name Ixchel. It has a visible place in contemporary Mexican sport through taekwondo athlete Itzel Manjarrez and soccer goalkeeper Itzel González, and an established American birth-record history.

Meaning and origin

One explanation relates Itzel to Classic Maya itz, a word with meanings involving resin, nectar, dew, liquid, and enchantment. The connection between that word and the personal name remains a proposal.

Another explanation treats Itzel as a form of Ixchel. These possibilities do not establish one fixed literal meaning, so Itzel is best understood as a name with a Maya association whose precise derivation remains unresolved.

Ixchel is a proposed relative rather than an interchangeable spelling. Itzel's modern written form has five letters and the distinctive central sequence tz.

Itzel Manjarrez and international taekwondo

Mexican athlete Itzel Manjarrez competed in the women's flyweight taekwondo event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She defeated Brazil's Iris Sing in the quarterfinals before advancing to the semifinals.

Manjarrez finished joint fifth. After losing in the semifinal, she contested a bronze-medal bout against Thailand's Panipak Wongpattanakit, who won that match. Reaching that stage was a significant Olympic result, although it did not bring Manjarrez a medal.

Her international achievements extended beyond Rio. She won silver in the women's under-49-kilogram event at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.

She also won gold at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez in 2010 and Veracruz in 2014, in different weight categories. Bronze medals at the 2011 and 2017 Summer Universiades add to a sporting record built across several major international competitions.

Itzel González and soccer

Goalkeeper Itzel González played college soccer at the University of California, San Diego, from 2012 to 2016. In her final season she started all twenty-two games and recorded a goals-against average of 0.50.

Her collegiate honors included selection to the D2CCA All-America Third Team. She also studied structural engineering, bringing an academic connection into the story of a professional athlete.

González spent five seasons with Tijuana in Mexico's top women's league and gained experience with Sevilla in Spain. By July 2022 she had returned to Mexico with Club América.

Her selection for Mexico's national-team roster in 2022 followed earlier call-ups in 2019 and 2021. Her career gives Itzel an association with college, club, and international soccer alongside Manjarrez's achievements in an individual combat sport.

American popularity

In the United States, 430 girls were named Itzel in 2000. The largest annual female total came in 2005, with 976 girls and a rank of 328th.

The name was given to 764 girls in 2010 and 850 in 2025, when it ranked 359th. Recent totals remain below the mid-2000s peak but substantially above the count at the beginning of the century.

How popular is Itzel?

In 2025, Itzel ranked #359 among girls in the United States, with 850 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1977; its largest annual count was 976 in 2005. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.