Baby Name of the Day Hazel: Vivid, Strong, and Wise

Vintage style meets modern strength in the name Hazel.

Thanks to Ellen for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.

WHAT DOES THE NAME HAZEL MEAN?

We all recognize Hazel as a nature name, but what precisely is it?

In the natural world, it’s part of corylus, a genus of trees and shrubs. Different varieties abound, and many types produce hazelnuts, also called filberts. (Or, in French, avelines – for yet another lovely name.)

Hazel trees grow in Europe, North America, and Asia. So do hazel shrubs. 

Strictly speaking, any hazel tree growing nuts counts as a hazelnut tree. The most common variety is the corylus avellana. During the 21st century, Turkey produces more than half of the world’s hazelnuts from these trees.

Rich symbolism attaches to the plant. Celts believed that eating the nuts made one wise. Finn McCool absorbed the wisdom of a salmon who feasted on hazelnuts. Visit Belfast today and The Big Fish – a giant sculpture formally known as The Salmon of Knowledge – stands alongside Donegall Quay. Similar stories exist in other European folk traditions, including Wales and Scandinavian countries. Other traditions substitute a serpent for a fish, but the story is similar – though it’s not always hazelnuts that provide the wisdom.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales suggests that branches from a hazel tree can offer protection. In their version of Cinderella, a hazel twig grows into a mighty tree that protects the future princess. 

Generations of girls have received nature names. During the late 1800s, Hazel kept company with Myrtle and Rose. Today it fits in nicely with Willow and Jade.

MORE ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE NAME HAZEL

If you hear this name and add “witch” before it, that’s because of a completely separate plant. Typically a shrub, witch hazel takes its name from the Old English word wice, wiche, or wych, which had nothing to do with witches.

Instead, wice came from a word meaning “to bend.” So witch hazel’s pliant, bendy branches gave the plant its name. Because the leaves look rather hazel-like, it became “the bendy hazel.”

Disney gave us an animated Witch Hazel during the 1950s. Not long after, Looney Tunes’ Chuck Jones invented his own witch with the same name. 

Hazel is also the name of a brown color, typically with plenty of green and gold mixed in. Shakespeare first used it to refer to eye color. The spelling haesel appears in Old English. By the time Mercutio says it in Romeo and Juliet, during the 1590s, it’s changed to “hassle eyes.”

In this case, though, the color refers expressly to the tree and vice versa.

LITERARY HAZEL

That doesn’t quite make the baby name Hazel a Shakespearean choice.

Male characters by the name appear in two widely-known stories:

• John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row takes place in Monterey, California during the Great Depression. Hazel is used for a male character, a simple-minded but kind young man. His mother was so worn out from raising children that she picked the name for a girl, but didn’t notice she’d had a son instead. It became a movie in 1982, and remains widely-read.
• An even more common reference? 1972 novel Watership Down gives us Hazel, a brave rabbit who leads a group as they find a new home and confront all sorts of dangers. Richard Adams’ 1972 story has inspired multiple adaptations, most recently in 2018. James McAvoy voiced Hazel. 

Neither of these references has ever moved the needle, though. Hazel remains solidly a girl’s name.

The current reason? Part-literature, part-pop culture.

John Green’s bestseller The Fault in Our Stars debuted in 2012. It’s the story of a romance between two teenagers, both facing a cancer diagnosis. Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Lancaster fall for each other. He calls her “Hazelgrace” – one name, all smooshed together. 

In a 2014 movie adaptation, Shailene Woodley starred as main character Hazel, while Ansel Elgort played Gus. 

POP CULTURE HAZEL

Any parent old enough to have kids now probably thinks of the smash hit YA novel, but there are other uses in history and pop culture that might come to mind:

• Heroic teenage Hazel Miner saved all of her siblings during a 1920 North Dakota snowstorm – even though she perished. Miner remains a local folk hero.
• Popular comic strip Hazel chronicled the misadventures of a housekeeper by the name. It ran for fifty years, from the 1940s into the 1990s, and also became a successful television series during the 1960s.
• There’s also a Bob Dylan song by the name, and an indie band called Sister Hazel.

In 2004, Julia Roberts welcomed twins Hazel Patricia and Phinneas Walter. The world raised an eyebrow at their old-fashioned names.

Except Roberts was ahead of the nature names trend. 

By the time John Krasinski and Emily Blunt welcomed their daughter Hazel – a decade after Roberts – it was a mainstream favorite. Emily described looking for an “old lady” name that she and John both liked.

HOW POPULAR IS THE NAME HAZEL?

The United States reports name data through the US Social Security Administration. The first lists date to the year 1880. 

Way back in the 19th century, Hazel charted in the US Top 100. The name remained there right through 1936. It spent more than ten years at 25 or better.

By the 1950s, the name fell out of favor, leaving the Top 1000 entirely during the 1970s. During that era, Hazel was the bumbling maid in a madcap comedy or the green-skinned witch from animation. 

We’d mostly forgotten those figures by the late 1990s. In the year 1998, Hazel returned to the US Top 1000. A few years later, Roberts gave the name to her daughter. While celebrity baby names don’t always prove influential, this was the right name at a key moment.

By the time Roberts’ daughter was old enough for kindergarten, the name Hazel had more than doubled in use. 

The trend favoring eco-vintage names accelerated. Hazel’s mix of a strong sound with ties to the natural world made it a fast-rising favorite.

In recent years, it’s been joined by boys’ names sharing the “haze” sounds – Hayes, of course, as well as rhymes-with-Aiden Hayden.

As of 2025, the name stood at #21. It reached popularity at #18 in 2023, but remains a favorite given name for girls in the US.

SMART, STRONG, and COLORFUL

Naming a baby girl means considering frilly, elaborate picks like Arabella and Serpahina, as well as tailored, unisex choices like Parker or Sloane.

Hazel strikes the perfect balance. It’s a strong, independent name that shares something of L-ending names like Isabelle, but it’s also unmistakably borrowed from the natural world.

It’s an old school name with ties to wisdom and a colorful choice that evokes autumn. 

With all of these references, and our love of nature names and all things vintage, no surprise that the baby name Hazel is back in a big way.

Would you consider the baby name Hazel for a daughter?

Note: This post was originally published on May 8, 2008, and substantially revised on April 26, 2011; November 15, 2017; May 31, 2024; and October 7, 2026.