Name Awesome

Roel

#2,510 in 2025Boys' name

Short form of Roeland

Roel has been given to 4,711 babies in the U.S. since 1926. In 2025 it ranked #2,510 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2000, with 83 recorded.

Babies named Roel, 2025

1 in 61,400

Roel over time, 1880–2025

Boys
025507510018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Roel: meaning, origin, and history

Short form of Roeland

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Roel means

Roel is a short form of Roeland.

Origin, language, and formation

Roel is used in Cebuano and Dutch.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Roeland and Roelof.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 4,711 boys were recorded with the name Roel between 1926 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 83 in 2000; its best national rank was #879 in 1969.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #2,720 in 2020 to #2,510 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #2,948 in 2015 to #2,510 in 2025.

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 Roel?

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

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 61,400
54 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 31,600
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#2,510
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
42,555 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Roel 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 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 42,555 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Roel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Roels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Roel was born before 1985 — so the typical Roel is around 40 today.

Median birth year
1985
About 40 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
14.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
29.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
4,463
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 14.8% of all recorded uses (698).

Is Roel 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
−253
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
+210
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+438
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.35×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
65.1%
Peak was 2000 (83)
Years since peak
25
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
16.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#879
1969

Spellings of Roel

Roel is not the most common spelling — Joe is, with 18.0% against Roel's 0.19%.

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 Roel is used

Across 1910–2025, Roel was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in 3,704 boys, against 1 in 10,922 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).

027 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Texas1 in 3,704
  2. 2California1 in 100,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4Washington1 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. Roel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Roel around the world

Where Roel 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
    2014–2025
    #1,897
    in 2025
  • France
    2017–2025
    #2,179
    in 2025

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Notable people named Roel

People whose public names include Roel, 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.

Roel by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#2,510
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 210
Best rank ever
#879
1969
Peak year
2000
83 that year
First recorded
1926
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
4,711
Count in 2025
54

Names similar to Roel

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

YoelRoenRoeNoelRoeyYisroelZoelLoelJoelRoeeJhoelRefoelRoemelloEyoelMichoelRoertDoelCoelXoelOelKnoelRoenick

Names with a curve like Roel

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

AnibalArnoldoNorbertoHomeroLarsReganVidalLamontePhilippeAlainClaudioReinaldo

Sibling names for Roel

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 Roel

Top names of 2000, Roel's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 1969Boys' names starting with RDutch Boy Names