Deryl
Masculine · “from a place in Normandy”
Deryl is given to both — 1,826 boys and 190 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Four spellings of this name are in use and only this one has an e in the first syllable. Darrell, Darryl and Daryl all use an a; Deryl does not, and in a syllable that is unstressed and reduced to nothing, that is a purely visual decision with a measurable consequence.
How old is the name Deryl?
Deryl first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Deryl alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 1,200 people named Deryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Deryl most popular?
Deryl peaked in 1950, reaching #989 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Darrell to Deryl
The story of Deryl
The measurable consequence is that this is the spelling that went to girls. The a-spellings of the name stayed predominantly male through the twentieth century; this one did not, and the record holds it for both with the daughters as the larger side. That is the usual pattern for a surname-name once alternatives appear: the standard form holds its ground and the variants cross, because parents choosing a variant are already treating the name as material rather than as an inheritance. One letter, doing nothing audible, marking a real difference in who gets called it.
Meaning
from a place in Normandy
A Norman locative surname, from a village whose name the family carried to England after the Conquest. The identification is standard and the respellings do not affect it.
How the name formed
- Darrell
- Daryl
- Deryl
Pronouncing Deryl
DERR-ul
Two syllables with the stress at the front. All four spellings are said identically, so the differences are entirely on the page.
Nicknames for Deryl
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
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 195851 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #989reached in 1950
- Change vs 1999
- 0.0%7 in 2003, 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.
Deryls among us
people named Deryl 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
Deryl 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 completely unisex and the record bears that out.
- The sound is settled even where the spelling is not.
- It is far rarer than the standard spellings while sounding the same.
- Three commoner spellings exist and this gets corrected to all of them.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- It is closely tied to the middle decades of the last century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Deryl
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Deryls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Deryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Deryl in 2025?
- Deryl is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Deryl with classmates?
- Deryl 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 Deryl? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Deryl and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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