Mell

Where Mell comes from

Mell hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

Along the way
  1. 1883
    First appearance
    #799 among boys, 6 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1889
    Peak, #722
    8 babies named Mell — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1892
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births.
  4. 1927
    Mell Lazarus born
    syndicated cartoonist
  5. 1963
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  6. 2002
    Mell Reasco born
    Ecuadorian tennis player
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Mell Lazarus · syndicated cartoonist, 1927–2016
  • Mell Reasco · Ecuadorian tennis player, born 2002
  • Mell G. Underwood · United States federal judge, 1892–1972
  • Mell Mina · Ecuadorian taekwondo practitioner, born 2002

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.