Jewell

Where Jewell comes from

Medieval/Middle English form of a Breton saint's name, from Old Breton Judicaël "lord" + "generous." The second element is from hael (“generous, bountiful”) and identical to Welsh hael (“generous”) (see that entry for details).
— Wiktionary's entry for Jewell
  • Celtic
  • English
Jewell through the years
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #628 among girls, with 8 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1884
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name. From this year on, more girls have.
  3. 1910
    Peak, #188
    362 babies named Jewell, its best rank.
  4. 1952
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births, down to #668.
  5. 1968
    Jewell born
    American R&B singer
  6. 1993
    Jewell Loyd born
    American basketball player
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Celtic languages transferred back from the surname.
  • A female given name from English, of rare usage, variant of Jewel.
  • An unincorporated community in Marin County, California.
  • A small city in Jewell County, Kansas.
  • An unincorporated community in Clatsop County, Oregon.
Namesakes
  • Jewell Loyd · American basketball player, born 1993
  • Jewell · American R&B singer, 1968–2022
  • Jewell Marceau · American pornographic actress, born 1975
  • Jewell James Ebers · American electrical engineer, 1921–1959
  • Jewell Parker Rhodes · American writer, born 1954

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.