Herschel

Meaning of Herschel

The name Herschel traces its roots to the Middle High German diminutive form Hirschl—itself derived from Old High German hirisc, meaning “deer”—and corresponds etymologically to the Hebrew Tzvi; historically, it has functioned as an affectionate given name within Ashkenazi Jewish communities, its semantic field evoking attributes of alertness and agility associated with the cervid genus. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the surname Herschel attained scientific renown through the work of William Herschel (1738–1822), the Anglo-German astronomer who discovered Uranus, and his sister Caroline Herschel, whose systematic cataloguing of nebulae and comets significantly advanced observational astronomy, thereby embedding the name within the Anglo-American intellectual tradition of exploration and discovery. In contemporary usage, Herschel is pronounced uniformly in British and American English as /ˈhɜːʃəl/, and in the United States it has maintained a stable yet modest frequency—occupying positions between ranks 880 and 904 in the Social Security Administration’s annual male name lists from 2020 through 2024—reflecting a measured revival of this classic appellation.