Lionel
Lionel is a boy's name that peaked in 2023, when it was the 495th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 659th. About 22,000 Lionels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 41.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lionel boys named Lionel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 33,833
- Estimated living today
- 22,000
- Median age today
- 41
- Peak year
- 2023
- Best rank
- 495th
- Rank in 2025
- 659th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 44 / 33,789
How old the living Lionels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 33,833 babies given the name since 1880, about 22,000 are alive — 65 in every hundred. Roughly 6,800 of them are children and 4,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1984 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 Latin
A Middle English diminutive of French Léon, Latin Leo (“lion”), or of the Middle English nickname Lion + -el.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lionels
- Lionel Richie (born 1949)American singer, songwriter and actor
- Lionel Jospin (1937–2026)93rd Prime Minister of France
- Lionel Barrymore (1878–1954)American actor, director and screenwriter
- Lionel Scaloni (born 1978)Argentine football coach
- Lionel Hampton (1908–2002)American jazz musician
- Lionel Robbins, Baron Robbins (1898–1984)British economist
- Lionel Aingimea (born 1965)Nauruan politician, president from 2019
- Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338–1368)Prince of England
People named Lionel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lionel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lionel is most concentrated in Louisiana (8.8×), Maine (5.5×), New Hampshire (4.4×), Rhode Island (3.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2023
The most popular boys’ names the year Lionel peaked:
Lionel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Lionel | 92,475 | 25th |
| Switzerland boys | Lionel | 2,622 | 23rd |
| Belgium boys | Lionel | 1,371 | 150th |
| Italy boys | Lionel | 438 | — |
| England and Wales boys | Lionel | 412 | 847th |
| Poland boys | Lionel | 74 birth registrations | 353rd |
| Norway boys | Lionel | 46 | 233rd |
| Ireland boys | Lionel | 23 | 222nd |
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.
Lionel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Lionel | 2,291 | 0.184% | 15th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Lionel | 298 | 0.068% | 85th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Lionel | 29 | 0.044% | 41st |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Lionel | 4 | 0.108% | 22nd |
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, Lionel is most concentrated in Basel-Landschaft, where 0.29% of children were given it – 154 of them.
Lionel: rank by region
In 2025, Lionel was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Lionel | 306 | 19 |
| Wallonia | Lionel | 177 | 16 |
In 2025, Lionel was given 2 times or more in 2 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mazowieckie | Lionel | 312 | 2 |
| Śląskie | Lionel | 254 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Lionel appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (178th), Province of Liège (183rd), Province of Hainaut (215th) and Province of East Flanders (226th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 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.
Lionel by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 94 | 171st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Lionel 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 boys | Lionel | 222 | 511 |
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 Lionel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,002 men called Lionel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Lionel | 207 | 0.356 | 303 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Lionel | 98 | 0.184 | 538 |
| Málaga | Lionel | 63 | 0.072 | 820 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Lionel | 59 | 0.059 | 1,145 |
| Granada | Lionel | 27 | 0.058 | 901 |
| Cádiz | Lionel | 34 | 0.055 | 750 |
Listed in 31 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 21 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
Lionel 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.