Hazel

In ancient Rome, hazel branches were carried by heralds as symbols of peace and authority, and the caduceus - the staff of Hermes/Mercury - was traditionally made of hazel wood in some accounts.

As a given name, Hazel emerged in England during the 19th century as part of the broader Victorian fashion for nature names - particularly tree and flower names - for girls.

The name first appeared in English parish records as a given name in the mid-1800s and gained rapid traction in the 1880s-1900s, coinciding with Romantic and Arts and Crafts movement aesthetics that celebrated the natural world.

In the United States, Hazel entered the SSA top 10 girls’ names in the early 20th century, peaking around 1900-1915 before a long mid-century decline as it acquired associations with an older generation.

The name remained uncommon in American birth records through the 1970s-1990s but began a sustained revival around 2010, driven by the same vintage-name renaissance that lifted Eleanor, Violet, and Clara.

John Green’s novel “The Fault in the Stars” (2012) featured Hazel Grace Lancaster as its protagonist, a teenager with cancer navigating love and mortality; the book’s massive cultural impact - and its 2014 film adaptation - significantly accelerated

Hazel’s comeback.

By 2020 Hazel had returned to the top 30 girls’ names in the United States, a position it had not held since approximately 1920.

The name also gained attention when actress Julia Roberts named her daughter Hazel in 2004, representing an early celebrity adoption of the name during its revival period.

Hazel color - the mixed brown-green-gold of hazel eyes - is itself named after the tree’s nuts and leaves, giving the name an additional chromatic association.

In Irish folklore the hazel is one of the sacred trees of the Ogham alphabet, associated with the letter “Coll” and symbolizing intuition and poetic inspiration.

The name is used almost exclusively in English-speaking countries, without significant cognate forms in other major languages, making it culturally distinctive.

Its botanical, folkloric, literary, and vintage-revival associations combine to give Hazel one of the strongest resurgence trajectories of any English name in the 21st century.