Derrel
Masculine · “From Airelle”
Derrel and Darrell differ in a vowel that neither of them pronounces. The first syllable of both is followed by a doubled r, which shortens whatever vowel is in front of it and leaves very little to distinguish an a from an e; American speakers say the two spellings identically.
How old is the name Derrel?
Derrel first appears in US birth records in 1916 — 109 years ago. The typical Derrel alive today was born around 1955, making them about 70 years old. About 700 people named Derrel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Derrel most popular?
Derrel peaked in 1940, reaching #1397 nationally. See the whole 1940 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Airelle to Derrel
The story of Derrel
The Norman place has a pleasantly ordinary name. Airelle is the French word for a bilberry, the small dark moorland berry that English also calls a whortleberry or a blaeberry depending on the county, and the place was presumably named for the plants growing there. So a surname that reached America as a formal-sounding given name, arrived in England with an invading army, and belonged to a family with a castle, began as a description of where the berries were. That is a common shape for a locative surname: the grander the family, the more likely the name at the bottom of it is a farmer's description of a field.
Meaning
From Airelle
A Norman surname taken from a place in Calvados, with the French preposition fused onto the front. Nothing in the name describes a person; it records where a family came from before the Conquest, and everybody descended from them inherited the description.
How the name formed
- Airelle
- Darrell
- Derrel
Pronouncing Derrel
DER-ul
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced almost to nothing, and the first vowel is short before the doubled r; between them the spelling has very little to work with.
Nicknames for Derrel
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
- 1916
- Most boys named
- 194324 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1397reached in 1940
- Change vs 2007
- −16.7%5 in 2017, from 6
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.
Derrels among us
people named Derrel 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
Derrel 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
- The spoken name is completely familiar and never needs repeating.
- Short, firm and easy to say, with a real Norman history behind it.
- It is genuinely uncommon while containing nothing unfamiliar.
- Darrell, Darryl and Daryl are all commoner and all will be substituted.
- The difference from those is inaudible, so the spelling cannot be defended in speech.
- It is strongly dated to the middle of the last century in American records.
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Derrel
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Derrels 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 Derrel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Derrel in 2025?
- Derrel is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Derrel with classmates?
- Derrel 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 Derrel? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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