Given name & surname
Cemal
“beauty”
Cemal is a masculine given name from Arabic, meaning “beauty.” It is used in Turkish.
Meaning & origin
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1978. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Cemal through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 7
- 7 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1978
- 7 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 7 in 1978. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 226 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Cemal’s family of names
In Turkish usage, Cemal has a conventional equivalent in the English form Jamal.
The ring: across languages.
Across languages 2
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Cemal
- Cemal Gürsel4th President of the Republic of Turkey (1895–1966)
- Cemal SüreyaTurkish poet (1931–1990)
- Gamal MubarakEgyptian politicianborn 1963
- Cemal Reşit ReyTurkish composer and pianist (1904–1985)
- Cemal KütahyaTurkish handball player (1990–2023)
- Djamel AmaniAlgerian footballerborn 1962
- Cemal HünalTurkish actor (born 1976)
- Cemal AzmiOttoman politician1868–1922
- Cemal MersinliTurkish general and statesperson (1875–1941)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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