Name Awesome

Manual

Boys' name

God is with us, through Manuel

Manual has been given to 1,021 babies in the U.S. since 1910. 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 1928, with 23 recorded.

Babies named Manual, 2010

1 in 616,000

Manual over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Manual: meaning, origin, and history

God is with us, through Manuel

Spanish

What Manual means

Manual belongs to the name family reached through Manual → Manuel → Emanuel → Emmanuel → Immanuel. Its meaning is “God is with us”.

Origin, language, and formation

Manual is used in English. Its origins include Spanish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Manuel, Emanuel, Emmanuel and Immanuel.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,021 boys were recorded with the name Manual between 1910 and 2010. Its highest annual count was 23 in 1928; its best national rank was #1,538 in 1915.

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 Manual?

Manual had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2010, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2010
1 in 616,000
6 of 3,695,928 births
Among boys only
1 in 320,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2010
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
426,971 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Manual 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 2010 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 426,971 children born in 2010 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Manual. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Manuals were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Manual was born before 1950 — so the typical Manual is around 75 today.

Median birth year
1950
About 75 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
17.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
12.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
523
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 17.3% of all recorded uses (177).

Is Manual 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 1928 (23)
Years since peak
97
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,538
1915

Spellings of Manual

Manual is not the most common spelling — Manuel is, with 64.9% against Manual's 0.35%.

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 Manual is used

Across 1910–2025, Manual was most concentrated in Alabama — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 890,705 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Alabama1 in —
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Texas1 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. Manual has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Manual around the world

Where Manual 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.

  • South Australia
    1973–1973
    #454
    in 1973

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Manual 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
#1,538
1915
Peak year
1928
23 that year
First recorded
1910
Last recorded
2010
All-time count
1,021
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Manual

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

ManoloMannixManrajManavManoahMannieManningMansurMansonManvirMansourMandelMansoorManuManasManishMansaManvikManleyManassehMannyManveerManasesManfred

Sibling names for Manual

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 Manual

Top names of 1928, Manual's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1915Boys' names starting with M