Hazel
Meaning
"the hazel tree," an Old English word name that doubles as the warm brown-green of hazel eyes; a Victorian nature name that faded with its era and came back a century later as one of the signature revivals
Goes by Haze
The story
Hazel is an Old English word made a name: the hazel tree itself, and by extension the warm brown-green of hazel eyes. It belonged to the great Victorian wave of nature names, alongside Ivy, Violet, and Pearl, and its American curve traces that fashion exactly, strong from the 1890s through the 1920s, then falling with its era until it nearly vanished by midcentury. The comeback took a full hundred years. Hazel began stirring again in the 2000s, when Julia Roberts chose it for a daughter, and leapt in the 2010s, the decade millions of readers met the young narrator named Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars. Whether the books and famous babies drove the rise or merely rode it, the timing lines up, and Hazel now stands as one of the signature revivals, old enough to be new.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Hazel peaked in the 2010s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
88 people · the #45,127 first name in Brazil · median age 8
The census also counted 35 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Hazel deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Hazel truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Hazel fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Names like Hazel · Nicknames for Hazel · Middle names for Hazel
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