Othel
Masculine
Othel is given to both — 732 boys and 154 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Othel is recorded for boys and girls alike and has two possible sources, one of them a play. That play contains the first major role written for a Black character in English, and the English stage took about three hundred years to cast one.
How old is the name Othel?
Othel first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Othel alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 100 people named Othel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Othel most popular?
Othel peaked in 1909, reaching #893 nationally. See the whole 1909 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Othel
The part was written in about sixteen-oh-four and played by white actors in makeup for the next two and a half centuries. Ira Aldridge, an American, played it in Britain and across Europe from the eighteen-twenties, to serious acclaim in Poland, Russia and Germany and to open hostility in the London press. Paul Robeson played it in London in the thirties and on Broadway in the forties, where it ran longer than any Shakespeare production in American history. British theaters went on casting white actors in the role into the nineteen-eighties. The play is about what a society does to a man it has decided is an outsider, which gives the casting history a certain grim symmetry.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Othello appears to have been coined for the play and has no recovered etymology. An Old English element meaning inherited property has also been proposed for names of this shape. The record chooses neither.
Pronouncing Othel
OTH-ul
Two syllables with the stress in front and a soft th. oh-THELL is also heard.
Nicknames for Othel
Limited
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
- 1906
- Most boys named
- 192139 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #893reached in 1909
- Change vs 1964
- +16.7%7 in 1968, 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.
Othels among us
people named Othel 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
Othel 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 short on paper and quick to write.
- It is recorded for boys and for girls, so it leaves a question open rather than closing it.
- It has a documented place in the earlier American record.
- Most children with this spelling are boys, but a real minority are girls; either may be taken for the other.
- Two stress patterns are in circulation and the spelling settles neither.
- No origin is documented, so the meaning question has two candidates and no answer.
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Othel
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Othels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Othel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Othel in 2025?
- Othel is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Othel with classmates?
- Othel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Oliver#3 · Owen#31 · Oscar#223 · Omar#260 · Otis#652 · Orlando#871 · Otto#277 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Othel? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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