Daryl
Masculine · “from Airelle”
Daryl is given to both — 63,058 boys and 4,419 girls since 1880. See Daryl as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Darrell came from a place in Normandy called Airelle, and the name is a French preposition welded to a village: d'Airelle, of Airelle. The family carried it to England after the conquest and it became an English surname. Daryl is the spelling that crossed to girls, which the doubled-r versions largely did not.
How old is the name Daryl?
Daryl first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Daryl alive today was born around 1965, making them about 60 years old. About 49,500 people named Daryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daryl most popular?
Daryl peaked in 1970, reaching #161 nationally. Today it ranks #1529, 1,368 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Daryl appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Airelle to Daryl
The story of Daryl
Norman families are all over the English surname stock, and the ones formed from de plus a place name are the easiest to spot once the preposition has fused: Darrell, Devereux, Danvers, Disney. Darrell became an American given name for boys in the twentieth century and produced a spread of spellings — Darrell, Darrel, Darryl, Daryl. The single-r versions then drifted toward women without anyone deciding it, which is the ordinary fate of a men's name that becomes popular enough to be borrowed.
Meaning
from Airelle
The Norman family de Airelle took their name from a place in Calvados, and English wore the phrase down to Darrell. The place name itself is generally connected to a French word for a bilberry or whortleberry, which grew there. The derivation is documented. A surname records where a family came from rather than describing anyone, so the berries belong to a hillside in Normandy and not to anybody carrying the name.
How the name formed
- Airelle
- de Airelle
- Darrell
- Daryl
Related forms: Airelle
Pronouncing Daryl
DAIR-ul
DAIR-ul, two syllables, stress at the front, the second vowel reduced. Some say duh-RELL with the weight at the back, following the French original more closely, and both are heard in American use.
Nicknames for Daryl
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 19561,832 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #161reached in 1970
- Change vs 2023
- +50.7%113 in 2025, from 75
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Daryl in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Airelle in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, New York, California.
Daryls among us
people named Daryl are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 15,116 born in 2025 was named Daryl
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daryl
- #1529
- Daryl on the 2025 chart
- #747
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daryl went to 113 boys in 2025, but Darryl is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 182, which makes it the 747th most-given boys’ name of the year — 782 places above the chart.
- Daryl113
- Darryl69
About 1 boy in 9,385 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 15,116 for Daryl itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Wilbert test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daryl's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Wilbert climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Wilbert's path sketches the road Daryl is walking now.
Daryl sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Daryl is headed
Daryl should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Daryl beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daryl in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- There is a documented Norman family and a real French place behind it.
- Dar and Rell are both usable short forms in different registers.
- It works for either child, which the doubled-r spellings do less readily.
- Darrell, Darryl and Darrel are all in use and none is standard, so the spelling is dictated.
- The stress falls at either end depending on the speaker.
- It is closely tied to the middle of the last century and dates a person fairly precisely.
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What they receive
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Daryl
Masculine · #1529 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daryls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 49,500 people named Daryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daryl?
- Daryl is the most-used spelling in US records — 113 of the 182 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Darryl.
- How popular is the name Daryl in 2025?
- Daryl ranks #1529 among US boy names in 2025, with 113 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daryl?
- About 1 in every 15,116 US boys born in 2025 was named Daryl — 113 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daryl with classmates?
- Daryl will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daryl
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Percival#1529 · Manolo#1529 · Khari#1529 · Terrell#1529 · Nestor#1529 · Indigo#1529 · Skylar#1529 · Daylen#1529
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daryl? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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