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Herschel

#3,398 in 2025Boys' name

Variant of Hershel

Herschel has been given to 10,674 babies in the U.S. since 1880. In 2025 it ranked #3,398 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1921, with 277 recorded.

Babies named Herschel, 2025

1 in 97,500

Herschel over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Herschel: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Hershel

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Herschel means

Herschel is a variant of Hershel.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Herschel → Hershel. The family’s meaning is “deer, buck”, recorded in English with the source elements hirsh.

Origin, language, and formation

Herschel is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Hershel.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Herschel is pronounced /ˈhɝʃl̩/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 10,674 boys were recorded with the name Herschel between 1880 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 277 in 1921; its best national rank was #281 in 1901.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #3,040 in 2020 to #3,398 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #3,919 in 2015 to #3,398 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Herschel?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 97,500
34 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 50,200
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#3,398
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
67,586 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Herschel sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 67,586 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Herschel. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Herschels were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Herschel was born before 1933 — so the typical Herschel is around 92 today.

Median birth year
1933
About 92 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
21.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
4.8%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
3,172
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 21.2% of all recorded uses (2,258).

Is Herschel 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
+1,544
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−358
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
+521
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.26×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
12.3%
Peak was 1921 (277)
Years since peak
104
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
41.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#281
1901

Spellings of Herschel

Herschel is the most-used spelling, taking 42.0% of the 25,397 babies given a near-identical spelling.

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 Herschel is used

Across 1910–2025, Herschel was most concentrated in Indiana — about 1 in 5,556 boys, against 1 in 21,737 across all states with data. It was least common in South Carolina (1 in —).

018 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Indiana1 in 5,556
  2. 2Kentucky1 in 6,250
  3. 3Arkansas1 in 7,143
  4. 4Georgia1 in 7,143
  5. 5Missouri1 in 7,692
  6. 6Tennessee1 in 8,333
  7. 7Alabama1 in 10,000
  8. 8Oklahoma1 in 10,000

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. Herschel has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Herschel around the world

Where Herschel 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.

  • Canada
    2021–2022
    #2,602
    in 2022

Popularity data from Statistics Canada. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Herschel

People whose public names include Herschel, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Herschel by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#3,398
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 358
Best rank ever
#281
1901
Peak year
1921
277 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
10,674
Count in 2025
34

Names similar to Herschel

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

HershelHeribertoHerchelHerculesHernanMitchelMichelHershellHerminioHershyHermonHerbertHernandoHermanHermesHerschellHersonHermannHershHershalHeraclioHeronHerveyHerbie

Names with a curve like Herschel

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Herschel, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

WilfordFreemanBufordLymanEarleClementOdisCleoWiltonOlenMerrillCyril

Sibling names for Herschel

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Herschel

Top names of 1921, Herschel's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1901More old man namesBoys' names starting with HYiddish Boy NamesYiddish Names