Denzil
Masculine
Denzil is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,775 boys against 68 girls since 1880.
Denzil is a Cornish manor. It stands in the parish of St Mawgan, the family that held it took its name, and the name traveled out of Cornwall as a surname and then, unusually for a Cornish name, came back round to the front and became a first name in America.
How old is the name Denzil?
Denzil first appears in US birth records in 1897 — 128 years ago. The typical Denzil alive today was born around 1941, making them about 84 years old. About 1,600 people named Denzil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Denzil most popular?
Denzil peaked in 1937, reaching #588 nationally. See the whole 1937 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Denzell to Denzil
The story of Denzil
The Denzil who made the name known in English was a seventeenth-century politician: Denzil Holles was one of the five members Charles the First tried to arrest in the House of Commons, an act that helped start a civil war. The name had come into his family from a Cornish marriage, and it stayed in the English gentry as a given name afterward. In America it stayed rare and mostly Southern. Its modern life is a different story again. The spelling with an e in the second syllable, Denzel, was carried by a Pentecostal minister in New York, given to his son, and made famous by that son's acting career, and the e spelling has overtaken the i one in every year since.
Meaningscholars disagree
the stronghold or fort of a place called Sil
Cornish place names beginning din or dinas usually mark a fort, and the second element is generally taken as a personal name. The reading is plausible but not certain; Cornish place names are often recorded too late for their first elements to be traced.
How the name formed
- Denzell
- Denzil
Related forms: Denzell
Pronouncing Denzil
DEN-zil
Two syllables with the weight at the front. Denzel, the other spelling, is said the same way in America and with more weight on the second syllable in Britain.
Nicknames for Denzil
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
- 1897
- Most boys named
- 192074 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #588reached in 1937
- Change vs 2017
- −14.3%6 in 2020, from 7
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.
Denzil in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Denzell in Cornish — same name
Denzils among us
people named Denzil are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Denzil sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is a real place with a real history behind it, not a modern coinage.
- Denz works as a short form and reads as entirely modern.
- Two syllables, six letters, and no sound an English speaker has to learn.
- Denzel is now the far commoner spelling and will be written instead.
- The spelling is recorded for girls as well as boys in the United States.
- It is regularly heard as Dennis on the phone.
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Denzil
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Denzils are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Denzil are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Denzil in 2025?
- Denzil is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Denzil with classmates?
- Denzil will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
David#35 · Daniel#22 · Donald#690 · Dennis#707 · Douglas#807 · Dylan#41 · Danny#628 · Dale#1409
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Denzil? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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