Farrell
Masculine · “man of valor”
Farrell is given to both — 4,355 boys and 472 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Fearghal joins the Irish word for a man to the word for valor, which is about as direct as a name gets. The family name means the descendants of the valorous man, and English anglicized it to Farrell by dropping the prefix that said what kind of word it was.
How old is the name Farrell?
Farrell first appears in US birth records in 1902 — 123 years ago. The typical Farrell alive today was born around 1950, making them about 75 years old. About 2,300 people named Farrell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Farrell most popular?
Farrell peaked in 1935, reaching #589 nationally. See the whole 1935 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Fearghal to Farrell
The story of Farrell
Dropping the prefix was rarely a family's own decision. Anglicization happened at the point of contact with English administration — a clerk, a rent roll, an immigration desk — and it went first because English had no use for it and no settled way to spell it. What is lost with it is the grammar: the full form says descendant of Fearghal and names a line, while Farrell alone is a label. Many families restored the prefix in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the ones who did not now carry a name that has forgotten it was a genealogy.
Meaning
man of valor
Irish fear is a man and gal is valor or bravery, and Fearghal is the compound. The derivation is not disputed. The prefix O means descendant of, so the surname identifies a lineage rather than a person — the family were lords of Annaly in what is now County Longford. English rendered the whole thing as Farrell and O'Farrell interchangeably, and the version without the prefix is much the commoner in America.
How the name formed
- Fearghal
- Ó Fearghail
- O'Farrell
- Farrell
Related forms: Fearghal
Pronouncing Farrell
FAIR-ul
FAIR-ul, two syllables, stress at the front, the second vowel reduced. Irish Fearghal is closer to FAR-ghal, with a fuller first vowel and a consonant English does not have — so the anglicized name shares its meaning with the original and not much of its sound.
Nicknames for Farrell
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
- 1902
- Most boys named
- 193182 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #589reached in 1935
- Change vs 2022
- −37.5%5 in 2024, from 8
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.
Farrell in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Fearghal in Irish — related form
Farrells among us
people named Farrell 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
Farrell 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 Irish compound is documented and both halves are ordinary words.
- Fergal is available as a more accurate alternative for a family that wants one.
- Two syllables with a firm front stress, which carries a long surname easily.
- It reads as a surname to most people and will be taken for one on a form.
- The Irish pronunciation and the English one are quite far apart.
- It is uncommon as a first name, so it is spelled out more often than not.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Farrell
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Farrells are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Farrell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Farrell in 2025?
- Farrell is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Farrell with classmates?
- Farrell will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More F names
The most-given names starting with F, all years combined.
Frank#513 · Fred#1932 · Francis#420 · Frederick#435 · Floyd#2230 · Francisco#322 · Franklin#359 · Fernando#387
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Farrell? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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