Danell
A feminine variant of Daniel, meaning "God is my judge".
Name Census estimates that about 1,510 living Americans carry the first name Danell. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 74.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Danell today is around 47 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Danell births was 1977 (67 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Danell. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Danell with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Danell was once a predominantly female name but has become increasingly popular for boys in recent decades.
People living today
1.5K
~ 1 in 226,990 Americans
Peak year
1977
67 babies that year
Average age
47
years old
2022 SSA rank
#11,170
Tracked since 1941
Census
Danell in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,418 people with the first name Danell, which placed it at #9,702 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#9,702
National first-name rank
People counted
1.4K
1,418 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Danell
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Danell is White at 58.7%. The next largest groups are Black (26.4%) and Hispanic (7.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Danell described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Danell at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.7% · 833
- Black or African American26.4% · 375
- Hispanic or Latino7.8% · 111
- Two or more races4.1% · 58
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.6% · 22
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 19
Gender
Gender distribution for Danell
Danell is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,700 total registrations, 434 (25.5%) were male and 1,266 (74.5%) were female.
Danell as a male name
- Ranked #11,170 in 2022
- 6 male births in 2022
- Peak: 1975 (18 births)
Danell as a female name
- Ranked #15,069 in 2013
- 6 female births in 2013
- Peak: 1977 (54 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Danell on both sides of the split. Of the 1,426 people counted with this name, 346 were male (24.3%) and 1,080 were female (75.7%).
Popularity
Danell: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Danell from the 1940s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 508 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Danell by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Danell during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Danells live
The SSA's state-level files cover 5 states and territories. California, Ohio, Texas recorded the most babies named Danell, while New York, Pennsylvania, Texas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 32 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Danell
The name Danell has its origins in the medieval Germanic languages, specifically deriving from the Old Norse name Danill or the Old German name Danihil. These names were composed of the elements "dan" meaning "Danish" and "hil" meaning "battle" or "warrior." The name can be traced back to the 9th century and was likely used to refer to a warrior or soldier of Danish descent.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Danell is found in the Icelandic Sagas, a collection of medieval Icelandic literature from the 13th century. In the Saga of Grettir the Strong, a character named Danell is mentioned as a farmer in the region of Hunavatsdalur in northern Iceland.
In the 11th century, a Norwegian chieftain and landowner named Danell Halvorsson is mentioned in the Heimskringla, a collection of old Norse sagas written by the Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson. Danell Halvorsson was known for his involvement in the Norwegian civil wars during the reign of King Harald Hardrada.
Another notable figure with the name Danell was Danell of Mercia, a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon nobleman and military leader from the Kingdom of Mercia in what is now central England. He is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for his role in leading the Mercian army against the invading Welsh forces in the year 655.
In the 12th century, a French monk named Danell of Chartres is recorded as having been a prominent scholar and theologian at the University of Paris. He is known for his writings on the philosophical works of Aristotle and his contributions to the development of scholastic theology.
A more recent figure with the name Danell is Danell Leyva, an American gymnast who competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. Born in 1991, Leyva won a bronze medal in the men's parallel bars event at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
People
Danell + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Danell as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Danell: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Danell?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,510 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Danell going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 226,990 US residents.
Is Danell a common name?
We classify Danell as "Rare". It ranks above 92.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,700 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Danell most popular?
The single biggest year for Danell was 1977, when 67 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Danell is about 47 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Danell in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,418 people with the name Danell, or 0.47 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,702 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Danell in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Danell?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Danell on both sides of the split. Of the 1,426 people counted with this name, 346 were male (24.3%) and 1,080 were female (75.7%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Danell?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Danell is White at 58.7%. The next largest groups are Black (26.4%) and Hispanic (7.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Danell most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Danell in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.7% (833 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Danell in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Danell a female name?
Yes, 74.5% of people registered as Danell in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Danell still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Danell in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Danell can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Danell as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.