Hazel
- Pronunciation
- [Ha-zel]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- The Hazel Tree:Nut.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Hazel
Hazel is an English nature name referring directly to the hazel tree (genus Corylus) — a small deciduous tree native to Europe and parts of North America, valued for its edible nuts and its flexible wood (traditionally used for divining rods, walking sticks, and basketry). In Celtic mythology, the hazel tree was associated with wisdom and inspiration; in English folklore, hazel rods were carried as protection against witches and as instruments of dowsing.
Hazel as a personal name emerged during the late Victorian nature-name revival of the 1880s and 1890s, alongside Daisy, Ivy, and Holly. The name peaked in popularity in the 1900s and 1910s — Hazel held the US top-25 girls' rank from 1894 through 1924 — before falling out of fashion and remaining dormant for nearly a century. The contemporary surge is part of the broader vintage-revival wave alongside Eleanor, Charlotte, and Violet.
Hazel's modern climb is dramatic: from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the top 30 girls' rank by 2020. Notable bearers include American actress Hazel Court (1926–2008, British-American actress in 1950s–60s horror films), and the most influential modern fictional Hazel is probably Hazel Grace Lancaster, the protagonist of John Green's 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars (and the 2014 film). Modern celebrity adoptions — Julia Roberts named her daughter Hazel — accelerated the trend. The name's appeal is its tonal balance: vintage-coded but distinctly approachable, the in-built nature reference, two short syllables with soft consonants. Common nicknames Hazey, Hayes, and the rare Z each carry distinct registers; international forms include the German Hasel (rare) and the Spanish Avellana (the Spanish word for hazelnut, occasionally used as a name).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Hazel
US Popularity History (1886–2025)
Annual US births named Hazel by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1918 with 7,615 girls named Hazel (girl rank #33 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #21 for girls (6,318 US births). That's 12 places above its earlier 1918 peak — the name is more popular now than it has ever been.
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 Hazel Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Hazel the strongest states are Utah, Idaho, Montana.
Strongest girls-name states
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #95 | 707 |
| 2 | Hawaii | #75 | 113 |
| 3 | Connecticut | #75 | 351 |
| 4 | Florida | #74 | 1,897 |
| 5 | New York | #73 | 1,786 |
| 6 | Delaware | #71 | 91 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | #63 | 113 |
| 8 | Georgia | #55 | 1,274 |
| 9 | Maryland | #53 | 705 |
| 10 | West Virginia | #51 | 268 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Hazel in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hazle | Variant Of Hazel. | Female | English |
Looking for names like Hazel?
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 Hazel to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Hazel against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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