Carmelo
- Pronunciation
- [Car-me-lo]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fruitful Orchard. Refers To Mount Carmel In Palestine.
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Carmelo
Carmelo is a Hebrew-origin name rooted in Karmel — Mount Carmel, the coastal ridge in northern Israel whose Hebrew name means "fruitful orchard" or "garden land." Mount Carmel holds deep biblical resonance as the site of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal and as a place of natural abundance and spiritual significance. The Carmelite religious order takes its name from this mountain, giving Carmelo a centuries-long devotional dimension that has made it a favored name in Catholic communities across Spain, Italy, and Latin America. The Spanish and Italian -elo ending gives the name a warm, melodic close that softens the geographical austerity of its root.
Basketball player Carmelo Anthony (born 1984) is the name's most prominent modern American bearer — his 19-season NBA career produced one of the 21st century's most notable American basketball-scoring careers, including 28,289 career points among the highest totals in NBA history. Anthony's sustained visibility kept the name in American cultural consciousness across the full arc of its top-1000 run.
Carmelo first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2004 and peaked in 2013 at rank #516. It has remained in the top-1000 ever since, with 376 boys at rank #701 in 2022, 356 at rank #738 in 2023, and 386 at rank #699 in 2024. Total top-1000 births across the tracked run stand at 6,952. The name's two-decade persistence reflects both its deep roots in Spanish-heritage communities and its continued recognition beyond them. Variants include Carmel and Karmel — forms that step back to the mountain name itself.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Carmelo
US Popularity History (2004–2025)
Annual US births named Carmelo by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2013 with 514 boys named Carmelo (boy rank #516 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #712 for boys (377 US births). That's 196 places below its 2013 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Carmelo Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Carmelo the strongest states are Connecticut, Florida, Nevada.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connecticut | #332 | 74 |
| 2 | Florida | #458 | 338 |
| 3 | Nevada | #461 | 18 |
| 4 | New Jersey | #481 | 142 |
| 5 | New York | #487 | 303 |
| 6 | Illinois | #525 | 175 |
| 7 | South Carolina | #526 | 39 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #585 | 147 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #589 | 63 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #616 | 38 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | #901 | 24 |
| 2 | Tennessee | #830 | 20 |
| 3 | Michigan | #815 | 59 |
| 4 | Colorado | #797 | 16 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #762 | 86 |
| 6 | Louisiana | #761 | 17 |
| 7 | Indiana | #754 | 59 |
| 8 | California | #743 | 318 |
| 9 | Virginia | #732 | 72 |
| 10 | Ohio | #730 | 110 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Carmelo in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Carmelo
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Carmelo.
- Carmelo Anthony — Basketball Player (1984)
Looking for names like Carmelo?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Carmelo to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Carmelo against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).