Muriel
The girl's name Muriel has been in the national records since 1880, with 55,646 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 4,352nd. About 10,000 Muriels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 76.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Muriel boys named Muriel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 55,646
- Estimated living today
- 10,000
- Median age today
- 76
- Peak year
- 1922
- Best rank
- 112th
- Rank in 2025
- 4,352nd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 54,884 / 762
How old the living Muriels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 55,646 babies given the name since 1880, about 10,000 are alive — 18 in every hundred. Roughly 440 of them are children and 7,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1949 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 the name comes from
Origin Scottish Gaelic
Anglicized form of Scottish Gaelic Muireall, from muir (“sea”), from Old Irish muir, from Proto-Celtic *mori, from Proto-Indo-European *móri; + geal (“white, bright”), from Old Irish gel, from Proto-Celtic *gelos (“yellow, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- (“green, yellow”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Muriels
- Muriel Spark (1918–2006)Scottish novelist and writer
- Muriel Barbery (born 1969)French writer
- Muriel Bowser (born 1972)Mayor of the District of Columbia since 2015
- Muriel Humphrey (1912–1998)American politician
- Muriel Robb (1878–1907)English tennis player
- Muriel Hurtis-Houairi (born 1979)French sprinter
- Muriel Robin (born 1955)French actress and comedian
- Muriel Pavlow (1921–2019)British actress
People named Muriel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Muriel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Muriel is most concentrated in Maine (5.8×), Rhode Island (5.5×), New Hampshire (3.7×), New York (3.2×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1922
The most popular girls’ names the year Muriel peaked:
Muriel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Muriel | 70,745 | 24th |
| Switzerland girls | Muriel | 435 | 169th |
| France boys | Muriel | 250 | 473rd |
| Ireland girls | Muriel | 226 | 179th |
| Belgium girls | Muriel | 32 | 784th |
| England and Wales girls | Muriel | 21 | 3,318th |
| Scotland girls | Muriel | 13 | 429th |
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.
Muriel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Muriel | 416 | 0.033% | 108th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Muriel | 16 | 0.004% | 370th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Muriel | 1 | 0.002% | 170th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Muriel | 2 | 0.054% | 15th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Muriel is most concentrated in Aargau, where 0.05% of children were given it – 65 of them.
Muriel: rank by region
In 1996, Muriel was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Muriel | 423 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Muriel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 555th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Muriel 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 | Muriel | 6 | 16 |
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 Muriel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 592 women called Muriel 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cantabria | Muriel | 24 | 0.078 | 831 |
| Barcelona | Muriel | 148 | 0.049 | 1,214 |
| Palmas, Las | Muriel | 27 | 0.046 | 1,819 |
| Tarragona | Muriel | 16 | 0.037 | 1,595 |
| Girona | Muriel | 15 | 0.036 | 1,587 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Muriel | 37 | 0.036 | 1,669 |
Listed in 26 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 26 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
Muriel 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.