Estel
Estel is a boy's name that peaked in 1921, when it was the 692nd most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 2023. About 520 Estels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 73.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Estel boys named Estel
Girls and boys called Estel
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 467 girls and 2,374 boys in all, and in 1951 the split was 0 to 31.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 39 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 2,841
- Estimated living today
- 520
- Median age today
- 73
- Peak year
- 1921
- Best rank
- 692nd
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1893
- Girls / boys
- 467 / 2,374
How old the living Estels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 2,841 babies given the name since 1893, about 520 are alive — 18 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1952 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where Estel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Estel is most concentrated in Kentucky (14.9×), West Virginia (12.9×), Tennessee (8.1×), Indiana (4.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1921
The most popular boys’ names the year Estel peaked:
Estel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Estel | 260 | 1,682nd |
| England and Wales girls | Estel | 6 | 3,705th |
| Belgium girls | Estel | 5 | 1,234th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Estel among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Estel | 47 | 108 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Estel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,685 women called Estel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Girona | Estel | 363 | 0.877 | 174 |
| Lleida | Estel | 94 | 0.422 | 299 |
| Barcelona | Estel | 956 | 0.314 | 324 |
| Tarragona | Estel | 120 | 0.274 | 402 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Estel | 33 | 0.105 | 772 |
| Balears, Illes | Estel | 19 | 0.030 | 1,847 |
Listed in 9 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 43 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Estel against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.