Mabel is a medieval form of the Latin name Amabilis, meaning ‘lovable’. Mabel was a common name during the Middle Ages, though it became rare after the 15th century.
Mabel is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Mabel isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Mabel ranks 459. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 4 were named Mabel. In the entire USA, approximately 77,365 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Mabel. That is 0.02 % of all living Americans.
Mabel is a medieval form of the Latin name Amabilis, meaning ‘lovable’. Mabel was a common name during the Middle Ages, though it became rare after the 15th century.
In the U.S.,... the name experienced a revival between 1880 and 1910 and was even rarely given to boys at the time.
Appearing throughout the time in the United States, the name Mabel is a staple in the country: Girls have been given the name Mabel for more than 140 years, according to official U.S. naming statistics. Mabel is therefore one of the 432 girls’ names that have been given every year since 1880. Even beyond that, Mabel is a very special name that peaked in popularity over 100 years ago in the 19th century, ranking in the top 100 girls' names in our SmartGenius first name statistics: With #15 Mabel has never been more popular than back in 1891.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Mabel was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
As many as 1,019 babies were named Mabel in the USA in 2022, ranking it #287 on the list of the most popular girls' names for that year. However, it experienced its lowest point of popularity in 1997, when it was only ranked #2,653 of all female names in our SmartGenius statistics – back then only 42 girls were named Mabel.
The name Mabel may not be in the top rankings of the most popular girls’ names, but it is one of the few female given names, along with only 536 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Mabel is apparently especially popular in West Virginia. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 589 women in West Virginia is called Mabel. In total, that’s 2,505 women who feel addressed when the name Mabel is shouted loudly across West Virginia and who ensure that their name makes it to #153 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names in this nice state. If you asked all women in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Mabel as the answer a total of 77,365 times. This places Mabel at #398 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular women’s names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living women across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Mabel as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter M is a quite popular first letter for girls' names. That’s because 8.5% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters A and S are more common for girls' names.
With five letters, the name Mabel is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 8.5% of all girls' names start with an M, this initial letter occurs nearly 2.5-times as often as all 26 letters on average – and the most common one of all the girls’ names starting with M is Mary.
If your name is Mabel and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Mabel, you can simply say:
Mouse
Apple
Butterfly
Elephant
Lion
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Mabel
Mabel
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
M
A
B
E
L
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
M
A
B
E
L
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Mabel sounds like this:
