Name Awesome

Neill

Boys' name

Possibly cloud + champion, through Niall

Neill has been given to 1,834 babies in the U.S. since 1912. 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 1950, with 36 recorded.

Babies named Neill, 2021

1 in 484,000

Neill over time, 1880–2025

Boys
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Neill: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly cloud + champion, through Niall

Irish

What Neill means

Neill belongs to the name family reached through Neill → Niall. Its meaning is “cloud + champion”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Variant spelling of Neil, anglicised form of Goidelic/Irish Niall.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Neill (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Neill is used in English. Its origins include Irish.

Neill comes through Irish Niall.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Neil, Goidelic and Niall.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,834 boys were recorded with the name Neill between 1912 and 2021. Its highest annual count was 36 in 1950; its best national rank was #1,200 in 1940.

How common is Neill?

Neill had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2021
1 in 484,000
7 of 3,389,958 births
Among boys only
1 in 250,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2021
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
335,678 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Neill 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 2021 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 335,678 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Neill. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Neills were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Neill was born before 1958 — so the typical Neill is around 67 today.

Median birth year
1958
About 67 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
15.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
6.4%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,151
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 15.4% of all recorded uses (282).

Is Neill 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 1950 (36)
Years since peak
75
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,200
1940

Spellings of Neill

Neill is not the most common spelling — Bill is, with 39.4% against Neill's 0.45%.

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 Neill is used

Across 1910–2025, Neill was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 527,473 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1North Carolina1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4New York1 in —
  5. 5Texas1 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. Neill has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Neill around the world

Where Neill 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
    2013–2013
    #4,685
    in 2013
  • Scotland
    1974–2008
    #638
    in 2008
  • Northern Ireland
    2007–2007
    #357
    in 2007
  • Ireland
    1964–2001
    #409
    in 2001
  • France
    2004–2007
    #5,500
    in 2007
  • South Australia
    1944–1993
    #519
    in 1993

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Neill 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
#1,200
1940
Peak year
1950
36 that year
First recorded
1912
Last recorded
2021
All-time count
1,834
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Neill

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

NeikoNeizanNeithanQuillNeilanHillKirillPhillEstillGillNeimanNeilsJillMerrillJamillSherrillNeilDerrillTerrillNeilsonWillNeitanOrvillNeimar

Sibling names for Neill

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 Neill

Top names of 1950, Neill's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1940Boys' names starting with N