Izell
Masculine
Izell is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 687 boys against 17 girls since 1880.
Izell is a front and an ending, held in the record almost entirely for sons, with no documented parent. The letter it is built around has the strangest naming history of any in the alphabet — it has been called three different things in English.
How old is the name Izell?
Izell first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Izell alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 500 people named Izell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Izell most popular?
Izell peaked in 1950, reaching #1701 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Izell
The last letter of the alphabet has three English names. Zed is the older one, borrowed through French from the Greek zeta, and it is what most of the English-speaking world says. Zee is American, standardized by Noah Webster in his spelling book on the grounds of regularity — bee, cee, dee, and therefore zee — and it took hold because generations of American children learned their letters from that book and from the alphabet song it fits. The third is izzard, which was ordinary in Britain and America into the nineteenth century, appears in dictionaries and school primers, and seems to come from a French phrase meaning z hard or et zed. It survives now only in the phrase from A to izzard, meaning from beginning to end, which almost nobody says.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source is documented. It may be cut from Israel or Isabel, or built from a free front and the ending that closes a very large number of American names of the period. The record does not choose, and it holds the name for children of both sexes.
Pronouncing Izell
eye-ZELL
Two syllables with the stress at the back. Some families say IZ-ell with a short first vowel and front stress, and nothing on the page settles it.
Nicknames for Izell
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
- 195019 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1701reached in 1950
- Change vs 2020
- 0.0%5 in 2024, from 5
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.
Izells among us
people named Izell 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
Izell 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
- Both halves detach as short forms and neither sounds like the other.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- Five letters with no silent ones make it simple to spell aloud.
- Izelle, Isell and Ezell are all recorded and will be written for it.
- The first vowel has two readings, so the name is said two ways.
- Nothing records its origin, so the meaning question has no answer.
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Izell
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Izells are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Izell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Izell in 2025?
- Izell is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Izell with classmates?
- Izell will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More I names
The most-given names starting with I, all years combined.
Isaac#47 · Ian#83 · Isaiah#57 · Ivan#162 · Israel#315 · Ira#819 · Irving#1778 · Ismael#263
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Izell? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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