Mendel is a Yiddish pet form of Menachem, a Hebrew name meaning "comforter" or "consoler", and it is traditional in Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish families. Outside that community the name is best known from Gregor Mendel, the Austrian friar whose pea experiments founded modern genetics. Mendel has moved between number 1544, its best rank in 2024, and the mid-2000s over the last decade and stands at number 1846 in 2025.