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Janel

#11,326 in 2025Girls' name

God is gracious, through Jane

Janel has been given to 12,055 babies in the U.S. since 1933. In 2025 it ranked #11,326 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1971, with 424 recorded.

Babies named Janel, 2025

1 in 414,000

Janel over time, 1880–2025

GirlsBoys
020040060018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Janel: meaning, origin, and history

God is gracious, through Jane

English variant of Janelle

About Janel

Janel is an English spelling variant of Janelle, a name in the Jane family. It carries the older Hebrew meaning “God is gracious.” Pronounced juh-NEL, it has two syllables with stress at the end. Actor Janel Parrish and basketball player Janel McCarville are well-known exact-spelling bearers.

Meaning and name family

Janelle developed from Jane, whose history leads through French Jeanne and Latin and Greek forms to Hebrew names expressing God’s graciousness. Janel keeps that relationship while using a shorter written ending than Janelle.

Janell and Janella are close relatives. The different endings give these names different visual shapes, but they belong to the same broad Jane family. Janel’s five-letter form keeps the final l sound without the additional letters of Janelle.

In the English pronunciation, the first syllable is light, like the beginning of the word about after replacing its opening sound with j. The second syllable rhymes with bell. That final stress distinguishes Janel from Jane, which is a single syllable.

Janel Parrish on screen

Janel Parrish played Mona Vanderwaal in Pretty Little Liars. The role began as a recurring part before she became a full-time cast member in the third season. It gave the spelling a visible place in a television series built around friendship, secrets, and mystery.

Parrish also appeared in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and returned for its sequel. Netflix’s casting announcement placed her alongside returning performers Anna Cathcart and John Corbett, as well as leads Lana Condor and Noah Centineo.

Those projects connect Janel with two different kinds of screen storytelling: a continuing television mystery and a romantic film series. Parrish’s career makes the name recognizable to viewers who may encounter it in cast credits even when her characters have other names.

Janel McCarville in basketball

Janel McCarville was the first overall choice in the 2005 WNBA draft, selected by Charlotte. She later played for the New York Liberty, where she won the league’s Most Improved Player award in 2007.

In 2013, she won a WNBA championship with the Minnesota Lynx. Her draft selection, individual award, and championship belong to three different stages of her professional career, with three different teams.

McCarville gives Janel a sporting association alongside Parrish’s screen work. The name appears in basketball’s draft and award records as well as television and film credits, showing how an uncommon spelling can remain publicly familiar through a small number of prominent bearers.

American popularity

Janel’s largest annual female count in the local SSA series was 424 in 1971, when it ranked #470. In 2025, eight girls received the spelling, placing it at #11,326. Its American numerical peak came well before the best-known public careers of Parrish and McCarville.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Wiktionary and Wikipedia material is adapted with attribution under CC BY-SA 4.0 where applicable. 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 popular is Janel?

In 2025, Janel ranked #11,326 among girls in the United States, with 8 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1933; its largest annual count was 424 in 1971. 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.

How common is Janel?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 414,000
8 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 201,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#11,326
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
287,238 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Janel 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 2025 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 287,238 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Janel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Janels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Janel was born before 1978 — so the typical Janel is around 47 today.

Median birth year
1978
About 47 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
30.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
9.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
11,699
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 30.4% of all recorded uses (3,661).

Is Janel 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
−4,265
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−6,518
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−6,795
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.26×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
1.9%
Peak was 1971 (424)
Years since peak
54
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
17.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#470
1971

Spellings of Janel

Janel is not the most common spelling — Janet is, with 22.7% against Janel's 0.49%.

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 Janel is used

Across 1910–2025, Janel was most concentrated in North Dakota — about 1 in 3,846 girls, against 1 in 16,519 across all states with data. It was least common in Oklahoma (1 in —).

026 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1North Dakota1 in 3,846
  2. 2Hawaii1 in 5,882
  3. 3Minnesota1 in 6,250
  4. 4Wisconsin1 in 8,333
  5. 5California1 in 10,000
  6. 6Michigan1 in 11,111
  7. 7Washington1 in 11,111
  8. 8Colorado1 in 12,500

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. Janel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Janel around the world

Where Janel 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
    2005–2023
    #5,688
    in 2023
  • France
    2000–2025
    #6,172
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2024
    #3,457
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1967–1989
    #692
    in 1989

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, 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. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Janel

People whose public names include Janel, 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.

Janel in other languages

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

Janelle

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

Janel by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#11,326
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 6,518
Best rank ever
#470
1971
Peak year
1971
424 that year
First recorded
1933
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
12,023
Count in 2025
8

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#5,247
1971
Peak year
1983
6 that year
First recorded
1971
Last recorded
1989
All-time count
32
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Janel

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

JannaJanaeJanayJaniyaJaneyJannieJanellJaneeJanaiJaniaJanisJannelJanyaJaniyahJanethJanessaJaniahJanineJaneaJanieJanayaJanettJanaJanina

Names with a curve like Janel

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

DemetriaChristalCariStaciaNikiHolliCristyChandraMalissaBridgettRichelleDanelle

Sibling names for Janel

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 Janel

Top names of 1971, Janel's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1971Girls' names starting with J