Russell
- Pronunciation
- [Ru-ssell]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fox
- Origin
- English
About the Name Russell
Russell descends from the Old French surname Rousel, derived from rous (red) — referring originally to those with red hair or a reddish complexion. The name was brought to England by Norman French invaders following the 1066 conquest, where it became established as both a first name and surname, particularly associated with the Russell family of British nobility (the Dukes of Bedford).
Notable bearers include British philosopher Bertrand Russell (using Russell as a surname, 1872–1970, the iconic British philosopher and Nobel Prize laureate); American basketball star Bill Russell (using Russell as a surname, 1934–2022, the iconic African-American NBA Hall of Famer who won eleven NBA championships with the Boston Celtics); American actor Russell Crowe (born 1964, the New Zealand-Australian Oscar-winning actor of Gladiator 2000); American comedian Russell Brand (born 1975); and the fictional Russell of Pixar's Up (2009).
Russell held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1880 through 1970 — over nine decades of continuous American popularity, peaking around 1923 at #36 in the United States. The name has receded since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Old French-Norman-British pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built distinctive red-hair etymological register, the strong Bertrand Russell intellectual cultural anchor and Russell Crowe entertainment cultural anchor, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Norman and contemporary American. Common nicknames Russ (the dominant short form, casual and warm), Rusty (also a popular standalone name on its own), and the rare Sell each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Russell and Russel have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Old French Rousel and the broader related Norman-French Russel family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Russell
US Popularity History (1889–2025)
Annual US births named Russell by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1960 with 7,482 boys named Russell (boy rank #56 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #345 for boys (944 US births). That's 289 places below its 1960 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 Russell 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 Russell the strongest states are Montana, Utah, Maine.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montana | #182 | 30 |
| 2 | Utah | #204 | 247 |
| 3 | Maine | #214 | 26 |
| 4 | New Hampshire | #216 | 19 |
| 5 | South Dakota | #229 | 26 |
| 6 | North Dakota | #234 | 37 |
| 7 | Idaho | #240 | 107 |
| 8 | Minnesota | #283 | 212 |
| 9 | Oregon | #300 | 136 |
| 10 | Connecticut | #316 | 92 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Russell in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Russell
3 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Russell.
- Russell Brand — Movie Actor (1975)
- Russell Crowe — Movie Actor (1964)
- Russell Simmons — Entrepreneur (1957)
Looking for names like Russell?
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 Russell to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Russell against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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