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The first name 
Noel

Noel is a unisex first name, but it has been given primarily to boys for a number of years.

Noel known and loved in the US!

The name Noel is not currently one of the fashionable names trending in the top 10 rankings, but it is still popular and common. Recently, it has consistently ranked among the top 1,000 most popular first names in the United States. It is currently #683 in the SmartGenius ranking.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Noel

What does the name 
Noel mean?

Noel is the English form of Noël. It means ‘Christmas’ in French.

In the Middle Ages,... the name was given to children born on Christmas.

Noel -
evergreen, but special

For more than 140 years, parents decide to name their child Noel annualy. This means that there have been children named Noel who witnessed the first Labor Day parade in the U.S. or followed Albert Einstein's career. The name has 'always been there', but never ranked in the top 100, and thus people named Noel have consistently been special. A small flight of popularity was experienced by the name way back in the last century and in one particular year, parents liked Noel even more than any other time: in 1938, it holds its present record of #523 in the ranking of the most popular first names.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Noel was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

How popular was Noel 2022 among young parents?

The first name Noel has never been ranked higher than #523. In 2022, it rivaled the 703 names that preceded it on the list. In total, 188 children named Noel were born in that year. For comparison: 30 years earlier, in 1992, when possibly the parents of the now very young Noel were born, there have been 754 newborns who received this name.

Noel has 4 letters 
and begins with an N

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: 3.4% of all common first names in the US begin with an N. This means that N as the first letter for given names is neither particularly common nor rare. The most common initial letters of first names are A, J and K, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of first names.

With four letters, the name Noel is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four 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.

Thus, if 3.4% of all first names start with an N, this initial letter is slightly less common than all other letters on average.

Other names with 
N, o, e and l

If you take all the letters in the name Noel – N, o, e and l – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Nelo or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Noel

If your name is Noel 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...

This is how you spell the name Noel

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Noel, you can simply say:

Nut

Orange

Elephant

Lion

This is how the name Noel is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Noel in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Noel

Noel

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Noel

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Noel is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

N
O
E
L

Have you ever waved the name Noel

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.

N
O
E
L

Beeping like crazy...

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. Noel sounds like this: