Dashel
Masculine
Dashel is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 692 boys against 6 girls since 1880.
Dashel is a simplified spelling of Dashiell, and Dashiell is a surname that reached fame through one man: Samuel Dashiell Hammett, who wrote The Maltese Falcon and effectively invented the hard-boiled detective novel. The name is French in origin and was his mother's family name. Its peak is 2009.
How old is the name Dashel?
Dashel first appears in US birth records in 2005 — 20 years ago. The typical Dashel is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 700 people named Dashel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dashel most popular?
Dashel peaked in 2009, reaching #2401 nationally. Today it ranks #6143, 3,742 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From de Chiel to Dashel
The story of Dashel
Samuel Dashiell Hammett, born in Maryland in 1894, worked as a Pinkerton operative before writing the novels — Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man — that reshaped American crime fiction. He published under Dashiell, his mother's maiden name, and it is entirely because of him that the name is known. It began appearing on American birth certificates in the 1990s and has grown since, helped by the fashion for literary surnames and by the short form Dash, which is a name in its own right and appears in a well-known animated film.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Not established. Dashiell is generally taken as an anglicization of the French surname de Chiel or De Cheill, borne by Huguenot families who settled in Maryland; the underlying French name is not securely identified. So the route is reasonably clear and the meaning is not. The simplified Dashel spelling is American and modern and adds nothing.
How the name formed
- de Chiel
- Dashiell
- Dashel
Related forms: Dashiell · Dashell
Pronouncing Dashel
DASH-ul
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ending reduced. Hammett himself said duh-SHEEL, with the stress at the end — the French pattern — and both are heard on American bearers. The front-stressed version is much the more common.
Nicknames for Dashel
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
- 2005
- Most boys named
- 200953 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2401reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −41.7%14 in 2025, from 24
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.
Dashel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dashiell in English — spelling variant
- Dashell in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Washington.
Dashels among us
people named Dashel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 122,005 born in 2025 was named Dashel
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dashel
- #6143
- Dashel on the 2025 chart
- #907
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dashel went to 14 boys in 2025, but Dashell is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 21, which makes it the 907th most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,236 places above the chart.
- Dashel14
- Dashell7
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 122,005 for Dashel 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 Juanjose test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dashel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Juanjose climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Juanjose's path sketches the road Dashel is walking now.
Dashel 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
Dashel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dashel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Dash is a short form that is a complete name in current use.
- The literary bearer is genuinely distinguished and easy to point to.
- The simplified spelling is much easier to write than Dashiell.
- Dashiell is the standard spelling and hers will be written that way.
- Two stress patterns circulate, and the writer himself used the less common one.
- The French surname behind it has no established meaning.
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Dashel
Masculine · #6143 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dashels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Dashel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dashel?
- Dashel is the most-used spelling in US records — 14 of the 21 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Dashell.
- How popular is the name Dashel in 2025?
- Dashel ranks #6143 among US boy names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dashel?
- About 1 in every 122,005 US boys born in 2025 was named Dashel — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dashel with classmates?
- Dashel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dashel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ruel#6143 · Cornell#6143 · Vasco#6143 · Kemper#6143 · Yates#6143 · Roark#6143 · Raja#6143 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dashel? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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