Name Awesome

Pawel

Boys' name

Possibly small, through Paweł

Pawel has been given to 449 babies in the U.S. since 1980. 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 1994, with 29 recorded.

Babies named Pawel, 2016

1 in 524,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Pawel: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly small, through Paweł

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Pawel means

Pawel belongs to the name family reached through Pawel → Paweł → Pavel. Its meaning is “small”.

Origin, language, and formation

Pawel is used in Low German.

Pawel comes through Polish Paweł.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Paul, Paweł and Pavel.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 449 boys were recorded with the name Pawel between 1980 and 2016. Its highest annual count was 29 in 1994; its best national rank was #2,599 in 1994.

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 Pawel?

Pawel had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2016
1 in 524,000
7 of 3,669,531 births
Among boys only
1 in 271,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2016
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
363,362 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Pawel 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 2016 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 363,362 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Pawel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Pawels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Pawel was born before 1996 — so the typical Pawel is around 29 today.

Median birth year
1996
About 29 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
45.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
73.9%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
449
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 45.4% of all recorded uses (204).

Is Pawel 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 1994 (29)
Years since peak
31
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
24.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,599
1994

Spellings of Pawel

Pawel is not the most common spelling — Paul is, with 84.6% against Pawel's 0.03%.

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 Pawel is used

Across 1910–2025, Pawel was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in 50,000 boys, against 1 in 120,102 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in 50,000
  2. 2New Jersey1 in —
  3. 3New York1 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. Pawel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Pawel around the world

Where Pawel 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
    2005–2024
    #4,271
    in 2024
  • Scotland
    2008–2016
    #592
    in 2016
  • Northern Ireland
    2008–2012
    #346
    in 2012
  • Ireland
    2006–2018
    #749
    in 2018
  • France
    1985–2025
    #5,153
    in 2025
  • Norway
    1880–2009
    #473
    in 2009
  • Canada
    1991–2005
    #1,865
    in 2005
  • South Australia
    1952–1992
    #538
    in 1992

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, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Pawel 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
#2,599
1994
Peak year
1994
29 that year
First recorded
1980
Last recorded
2016
All-time count
449
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Pawel

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

PawanJewelNewelMaxwelJowelDewelLowelEwelJuwelMaxxwel

Sibling names for Pawel

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 Pawel

Top names of 1994, Pawel's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1994Boys' names starting with PPolish Boy Names