Variant of Hazel, from the Old English 'hæsel,' referring to the hazelnut tree.
Hazell is an elaborated variant spelling of Hazel, which takes its name from the hazel tree — Old English hæsel — a slender, multi-stemmed tree native to Europe and western Asia whose catkins are among the earliest signs of spring. The hazel was freighted with meaning long before it became a name. In Celtic tradition it was the tree of wisdom and poetic inspiration; the Salmon of Knowledge in Irish mythology gains its power by eating the hazelnuts that fall into the Well of Segais.
Druidic divining rods and the hazel wands of fairy tales both draw on this deep association between the tree and the crossing of boundaries between the known and unknown. As a given name Hazel and its variants emerged in the Victorian era, part of the broader fashion for nature and botanical names that gave us Violet, Ivy, Lily, and Fern. It enjoyed strong use through the early twentieth century — Hazel was a top-fifty name in the United States in the 1900s and 1910s — before fading into a long quiet period that lasted roughly from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Its revival in the twenty-first century has been dramatic: driven partly by the beloved character Hazel Grace Lancaster in John Green's 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars, the name returned with enormous force, carrying the warmth of vintage grandmotherly names combined with a literary freshness. The double-l spelling of Hazell adds a subtle distinctiveness — closer to the Welsh surname tradition and to names like Estell, Annell, and Rosell — that gives parents a way to honor the name while making it uniquely their child's own. The hazel-colored eye, a warm blend of green and gold and brown, adds one more layer: the name is also a color, earthy and luminous at once.