Denzil
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From the Cornish surname, the original spelling of which was Denzell, a local name from a place in Cornwall
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈdɛnzəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Denzil is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GYGuyana1 in 2.4K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 159K
- NLNetherlands1 in 785K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 78 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.4K (inferred from the name graph)
2,096 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From the Cornish surname, the original spelling of which was Denzell, a local name from a place in Cornwall. It came to be used as a given name in the
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Denzil counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,096 | 1 in 159K | 2.1K | Denzil | 71 |
| GY Guyana | 312 | 1 in 2.4K | 312 | — | — |
| NL Netherlands | 22 | 1 in 785K | 22 | — | — |
| BR Brazil | 20 | 1 in 11M | 20 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | 10 | 1 in 1M | 10 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | 4 | 1 in 1.5M | 4 | — | — |
2,096 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Denzil is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, relationship name from the Middle English personal name Denisel, a diminutive of Denis.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
In English, ‘little Denis’ (see Dennis (i)).
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, diminutive of Denis; first attested Denisel 1189 Sol
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Cornish / Irish Gaelic; free from envy.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
English: from the Cornish surname, the original spelling of which was Denzell , a local name from a place in Cornwall. It came to be used as a given name in the Hollis family in the 16th century, when the Hollis family and the Denzell family became connected by marriage, and spread from there into more general use.
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Hollesb. 1599GBEnglish politician and army officer
- Denzil Roberts Onslowb. 1839GBBritish politician (1839-1908)
- Denzil Fortescue, 6th Earl Fortescueb. 1893GBBritish Earl (1893-1977)
- Denzil Keelorb. 1933INRecipient of Vir Chakra
- Denny Crumb. 1937USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player and coach
- Denzil Daviesb. 1938GBBritish politician (1938-2018)
- Denzil Douglasb. 1953KNPrime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Denzil Smithb. 1960INIndian actor
- Denzil Minnan-Wongb. 1963CACanadian municipal politician
- Denzil Haosebb. 1991NANamibian footballer
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 34 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.1K | #7,316 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 312 | #305 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1937 | 96 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1923 | 88 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1938 | 78 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1931 | 74 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1928 | 74 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1920 | 74 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1949 | 72 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1932 | 71 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1924 | 71 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1933 | 69 | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Denzil come from?
- From the Cornish surname, the original spelling of which was Denzell, a local name from a place in Cornwall. It came to be used as a given name in the Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What does the name Denzil mean?
- Recorded meaning: From the Cornish surname, the original spelling of which was Denzell, a local name from a place in Cornwall.
- How do you pronounce Denzil?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈdɛnzəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Denzil a male or female name?
- Denzil is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Denzil?
- In the etymology graph, Denzel is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Denzil have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.1 thousand people named Denzil, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled denzil.
- Where is Denzil most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Denzil is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 2.4 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Denzil?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,096 people named Denzil in 2020, about 1 in 159 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Denzil?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/denzilThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Denzil”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.