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Nigel

Male given name

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
26 min read
Source updated August 17, 2026
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Nigel (/ˈnaɪdʒəl/ NY-jəl) is an English masculine given name.

The English Nigel is found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walter Scott published The Fortunes of Nigel in 1822, and Arthur Conan Doyle published Sir Nigel in 1905-06. As a name given for boys in England and Wales, it peaked in popularity from the 1950s to the 1970s (see below).

Nigel has never been as common in other countries as it is in Britain, but was among the 1,000 most common names for boys born in the United States from 1971 to 2010. Numbers peaked in 1994 when 447 were recorded (it was the 478th most common boys' name that year). The peak popularity at 0.02% of boys' names in 1994 compares to a peak popularity in England and Wales of about 1.2% in 1963, 60 times higher.

01Etymology

The name is derived from the church Latin Nigellus. This word was at first assumed to be derived from the classical Latin nigellus (meaning dark). However, this is now considered an example of an incorrect etymology passed down and created by French-speaking clerics, who knew Latin as well and translated the Norman first name Neel to Latin written documents, as was conventional in Western Europe at the time. The Latin word nigellus gave birth to Old French neel (modern nielle), meaning "niello, black enamel"; and this explains the confusion with Nigel, because the clerics believed it was the same etymology as the first name Neel, spelled the same way.

However Nigel, via medieval Latin Nigellus and subsequently Norman Neel (modern surname Néel), and Norse Njáll, is ultimately derived from the Gaelic Irish given name Niall.

02England and Wales

The following table shows the number of boys given the first name Nigel in specific years in England and Wales. Numbers peaked in about 1963. In 1964 it was the 23rd most popular boys' name. By 2016 the number of boys named Nigel had dropped below 3, the minimum number reported by the ONS.

Year Number
1840 1
1850 2
1860 1
1870 7
1880 8
1890 10
1900 18
1910 24
1920 71
1930 164
1940 445
1950 1,943
1960 4,383
1963 5,529
1970 2,469
1980 413
1990 125
2000 25
2010 18
2015 9

03Medieval figures

04Notable people named Nigel

05Fictional characters

06Dog

  • Nigel, a Golden Retriever dog that belonged to Monty Don, a British television gardening presenter.
Watch videos about NigelExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Nigel”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

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