Emanuel
- Pronunciation
- [E-ma-nu-al]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- With Us Is God. Variant Of Hebrew Name Immanuel. A Biblical Name-Title Applied To The Messiah.
- Origin
- Spanish
About the Name Emanuel
Emanuel is the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German form of Emmanuel (see separate entry on Emmanuel for the Hebrew Immanu'el etymology meaning "God is with us" — referring to the Old Testament prophetic name in Isaiah 7:14, traditionally interpreted in Christian theology as a prophecy of Christ). The single-M Emanuel spelling is essentially a 20th-21st century American variant.
Notable bearers include American politician Rahm Emanuel (using Emanuel as a surname, born 1959, the American politician who served as White House Chief of Staff under President Obama 2009–2010 and as Mayor of Chicago 2011–2019); and the historical American Civil War flag-presenter Emanuel Leutze (using Leutze as a surname, the German-American painter of the iconic 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware).
Emanuel has been continuously used in Spanish-speaking American communities for over a century. The name climbed into the US top 200 boys' rank by 1995 and held a top-300 range since, driven primarily by Spanish-language naming influence and broader Catholic naming. The name's appeal is its layered Hebrew-Catholic-Spanish-Portuguese-Italian pedigree combined with four flowing syllables — the in-built distinctive God-is-with-us religious anchor, the strong messianic-Christological register, and tonal warmth distinctive to Spanish-language naming. The name reads as both classical-religious and contemporary American. Common nicknames Manny (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm), Manuel (back-end shortening, a popular standalone name on its own — see separate entry), Manolo (Spanish-American), Lito, and the rare Imana each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Emmanuel (the more elaborate French spelling), Emanuel (Spanish/Portuguese), Manuel (the shorter related form), and Emanuele (Italian) have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Emmanuel (French original), Emanuele (Italian), Manuel (Spanish/Portuguese), Manuele (Italian alternate), and the original Hebrew Immanu'el.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Emanuel
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Emanuel by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 1,386 boys named Emanuel (boy rank #256 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #574 for boys (513 US births). That's 318 places below its 2007 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 Emanuel 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 Emanuel the strongest states are Massachusetts, Florida, California.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #297 | 170 |
| 2 | Florida | #342 | 522 |
| 3 | California | #347 | 1,020 |
| 4 | New Jersey | #361 | 210 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania | #368 | 268 |
| 6 | Texas | #393 | 834 |
| 7 | New York | #405 | 396 |
| 8 | Nevada | #410 | 69 |
| 9 | Connecticut | #411 | 56 |
| 10 | Georgia | #426 | 233 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Emanuel in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Emanuel
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Emanuel.
- Emanuel Vidović was a Croatian painter and graphic artist.
Looking for names like Emanuel?
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 Emanuel to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Emanuel against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).