Mandela
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Mandela has been given to 172 babies in the U.S. since 1984. 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 1990, with 36 recorded.
Babies named Mandela, 2022
1 in 677,000
Mandela 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Mandela?
Mandela had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2022
- 1 in 677,000
- 5 of 3,385,755 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 349,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2022
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 469,366 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Mandela sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2022 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 469,366 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mandela. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Mandelas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Mandela was born before 1994 — so the typical Mandela is around 31 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2010s
- 36.0% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 48.8%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 172
- People you could plausibly meet
2010s — 36.0% of all recorded uses (62).
Is Mandela 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 1990 (36)
- Years since peak
- 35
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 97.1% average annual change
Spellings of Mandela
Mandela is not the most common spelling — Manuel is, with 89.2% against Mandela's 0.08%.
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 Mandela is used
Across 1910–2025, Mandela was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 2,227,344 across all states with data. It was least common in Georgia (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in —
- 2Georgia1 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. Mandela has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Mandela around the world
Where Mandela 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.
- France1998–2018#5,792in 2018
- South Australia2013–2013#754in 2013
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Mandela by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Mandela
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Mandela
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.