Jarrell
Masculine · “spear ruler”
Jarrell is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,223 boys against 22 girls since 1880.
Germanic naming ran on weapons, and ger, a spear, was among the most-used elements of all. Gerald is spear-ruler, Gerard is spear-brave, Gertrude is spear-strength, Roger is famous spear, and Edgar is prosperity-spear. Jarrell descends from the first of them.
How old is the name Jarrell?
Jarrell first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Jarrell alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 3,600 people named Jarrell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jarrell most popular?
Jarrell peaked in 1987, reaching #689 nationally. Today it ranks #6803, 6,114 places below that high. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ger wald to Jarrell
The story of Jarrell
The Germanic name stock is overwhelmingly martial: of about sixty productive elements, at least half name weapons, armor, battle or predatory animals. Ger, the spear, is one of the most common, and it survives in a dozen modern English names without anyone hearing it. Gerald came to England with the Normans, produced surnames including Jarrell, Jerrold and Garrett, and the surnames crossed to America. Jarrell became an American given name in the twentieth century, aligned with the -ell family of Donell and Darnell, and its best year is 1987.
Meaningscholars disagree
spear ruler
Jarrell is generally taken as a surname derived from Gerald, from Germanic ger, a spear, and wald, rule. The competing Gerard, from ger plus hard, brave, produced surnames that also anglicized as Jarrell and Jerrell. Neither can be assigned to a family without genealogy, and the -ell ending of the modern American given name is a further respelling.
How the name formed
- ger wald
- Gerald
- Jarrell
Related forms: Jerrell · Gerald · Gerhard
Pronouncing Jarrell
juh-RELL
Two syllables with the stress at the end. The first syllable is reduced almost to nothing, which is what distinguishes it from Gerald.
Nicknames for Jarrell
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 1989156 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #689reached in 1987
- Change vs 2023
- −7.7%12 in 2025, from 13
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.
Jarrell in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jerrell in English — spelling variant
- Gerald in English — related form
- Gerhard in German — related form
Jarrells among us
people named Jarrell are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 142,340 born in 2025 was named Jarrell
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jarrell
- #6803
- Jarrell on the 2025 chart
- #883
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jarrell went to 12 boys in 2025, but Jarell and Jarel are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 45, which makes it the 883rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,920 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 37,957 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 142,340 for Jarrell itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Wyman test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jarrell's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Wyman climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Wyman's path sketches the road Jarrell is walking now.
Jarrell sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Jarrell beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jarrell in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Germanic meaning with two concrete elements.
- Jerry and Rell are two short forms in very different registers.
- End-stressed, which gives it a rhythm most English names lack.
- Jerrell and Jarrell both circulate and split the records.
- The -ell family is closely dated to the 1970s and 1980s.
- It is close to Darrell and Terrell and gets confused with both.
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Jarrell
Masculine · #6803 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jarrells are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,600 people named Jarrell are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jarrell?
- Jarrell is one of 3 recorded spellings. Jarell is the more common one — 23 births in 2025 against 12 for Jarrell.
- How popular is the name Jarrell in 2025?
- Jarrell ranks #6803 among US boy names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jarrell?
- About 1 in every 142,340 US boys born in 2025 was named Jarrell — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jarrell with classmates?
- Jarrell will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jarrell
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zeb#6803 · Buster#6803 · Fabien#6803 · Eston#6803 · Tyjuan#6803 · Fuad#6803 · Aaiden#6803 · Sanford#6803
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jarrell? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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