Nicknames for Hazel
29 ideas for Hazel — the short forms people actually use, plus cute, funny and gamer versions. Copy any of them in one click.
- Haze the everyday clip, and it sounds cool
- Hazy the affectionate form
- Zel the back clip, unusual and good
- Zellie the affectionate form of Zel
- Haz the tightest clip, British favourite
- Hazza the British and Australian stretch
- Hazie the softer spelling
- Nutty the hazelnut joke, said with affection
- Hazel-Rose the standard compound
- Hazel-Mae the Southern double name
- Haze-Bear the usual affectionate pattern
- H initial only, in group chats
- Hazelnut the full version of the joke
- Aveline the old European name for the hazel tree
- Avellana Spanish for hazelnut, used playfully
- Leshka from Slavic words for the hazel tree
- Coll the Irish tree-name for hazel
- Hazelle the French-looking spelling
- Hazel-Bug family pet name
- Zelly the alternative spelling of Zellie
- Hazes the friend version, plural-sounding
- Witch Hazel the joke that arrives with the plant
- Purple Haze the follow-up joke, for older friends
- Hazel-Jane the compound, said whole
- Zaza doubled from Zel, playful
- Ha-ha The opening sound of Hazel, doubled.
- Honey Hazel Shares the "H" sound with Hazel.
- Hazel Pixel "Pixel" rhymes with Hazel.
- Hazel Rebel "Rebel" rhymes with Hazel.
About the name Hazel.
The tree came first. Old English haesel names a shrub whose flexible rods made hurdles, baskets and divining sticks, and whose nuts fed half of northern Europe. English speakers later borrowed the word for a particular greenish brown eye colour, and only in the nineteenth century did it become a girl's name, part of the same botanical wave that gave us Ivy, Olive and Myrtle. It was genuinely common around 1900, then fell to almost nothing by 1980, when it read as a housekeeper's name from old sitcoms. The recovery since 2000 has been one of the steepest of any revived name.
Rough and warm at the same time, with a z sound in the middle that stops it going soft. It has shed its mid-century associations almost completely, and now reads as woodland rather than domestic. Haze is the cool clip. Hazy is the family softening. Zel is uncommon but works nicely.
Most popular around 2020. Based on US birth records.
- Origin
- Old English
- Meaning
- hazel tree
- Syllables
- Ha·zel
- Used as
- a girls’ name
Famous people called Hazel.
-
Hazel Scott
jazz pianist and broadcaster
-
Hazel Court
English horror film actress
Questions about the name Hazel
What does Hazel mean? +
The hazel tree, and by extension the light brown-green eye colour named after the nut. In Celtic tradition the tree was associated with wisdom and with the salmon of knowledge, and its wood was the traditional material for a diviner's forked rod.
Is Hazel an old lady name? +
It was for about thirty years. Girls born around 1900 carried it in large numbers, which made it sound elderly to anyone growing up in the 1970s. That generation has now passed, the association has faded, and the name is back inside the American top thirty.
What are the nicknames? +
Haze is the main one and sounds noticeably tougher than the full name. Hazy is the gentle version used at home. Zel and Zellie come off the end and are uncommon but well formed. Plenty of Hazels use no nickname at all.
Is Hazel used for boys? +
Very rarely in English, and it is read as feminine almost everywhere it appears. Related words show up in male names in other traditions through entirely separate roots, but there is no meaningful history of English-speaking boys carrying Hazel itself.