Darnel
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Darnel has been given to 1,052 babies in the U.S. since 1937. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1986, with 36 recorded.
Babies named Darnel, 2021
1 in 424,000
Darnel over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Darnel?
Darnel had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2021, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2021
- 1 in 424,000
- 8 of 3,389,958 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 219,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2021
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 293,719 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Darnel sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2021 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 293,719 children born in 2021 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Darnel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Darnels were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Darnel was born before 1986 — so the typical Darnel is around 39 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1980s
- 21.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 24.6%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 987
- People you could plausibly meet
1980s — 21.7% of all recorded uses (218).
Is Darnel rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1986 (36)
- Years since peak
- 39
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 27.8% average annual change
Spellings of Darnel
Darnel is not the most common spelling — Daniel is, with 74.6% against Darnel's 0.04%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Darnel is used
Across 1910–2025, Darnel was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 281,018 across all states with data. It was least common in Florida (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1New York1 in 100,000
- 2California1 in —
- 3Florida1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Darnel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Darnel around the world
Where Darnel ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales1996–2009#4,527in 2009
- France1996–2025#6,322in 2025
- Canada1994–2006#2,447in 2006
- South Australia1999–1999#539in 1999
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Darnel by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Darnel
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Darnel
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.