Jonelle is a 20th-century American name — a feminine elaboration of John (Hebrew Yochanan, "God is gracious") with the French -elle suffix. Jonelle Allen (born 1944) — *American actress and singer; Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 1971 Broadway production of Two Gentlemen of Verona — the Galt MacDermot rock musical that won the Tony for Best Musical; Obie Award winner; played Dr. Julia Heller on CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993-1998); recurring roles on Generations (one of the first daytime soaps centered on a Black family). Jonelle Procope — American business executive; former president and CEO of the Apollo Theater Foundation (2003-2023), overseeing the historic Harlem venue's $65 million restoration. Jonelle Anderson — American athlete. Jonelle also appears as a popular variant alongside Jonnelle and Janelle; the name exemplifies the mid-century American tradition of creating feminine forms from popular masculine names (John → Jonelle, like Daniel → Danielle, Paul → Paulette). Jonelle Anderson* — entrepreneur.
Featured throughout American theatre and television.
Jonelle does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Jonelle reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.