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A name. A world of connections.
Welsh roots
/ˈhəu̯.ɛl/ · Welsh
01 / Meaning & origin
Hywel is a masculine given name documented in English, Welsh and Danish. English Wiktionary traces it to Welsh Hywel.
3 source accounts
From Welsh Hywel.
Meaning: “good” + “sight”
Equivalent to hy- (“good”) + gwêl (“sight”)
Apparenté au breton Howel,composé de hy (« bon ») et de gweld (« voir »).
02 / Across borders
Explore published naming statistics and documented language connections around the world.
The name atlas
12
countries in our sources
Select a country to follow Hywel’s connections around the world.
3 countries with published statistics. Language records show cultural connections; they do not measure how common a name is.
Selected country
Language records
Documented as a given name in English.
Explore United States4 of 12 countries
03 / By the numbers
Follow the spelling through the years, one published dataset at a time.
2025 Spelling: Hywel
Recorded category boys
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Source: Office for National Statistics · Baby names in England and Wales: 2025 (boys and girls workbooks, Table 6: all published names)
No rounding stated on the workbook; counts are published as integers (valueStatus=observed).
Per million is unavailable: this source has no matching published total.
| Year | Births | Rank | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 6 | 3,256 | observed |
Statistics count the spelling “Hywel” as recorded by the publisher. When a spelling has several independent origins, the counts are not split between them. Counts measure births. Gaps are years without a published value, not zeros.
Rates per million are unavailable for this series because no compatible denominator has been imported.
Released 2026-07-09 · Retrieved 2026-10-14 · OGL-UK-3.0
Read our methodology04 / Through time
Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.
HYWEL— “lordly”
In Wales, Hywel continued in favour, and Hywel-Dha, or the Good, who reigned in the tenth century, is famous for having gone to Rome to study law, by which he so profited as afterwards to draw up the famous code that has thrown so much light on the manners of the Cambrian mountaineers, the order of precedence in the king’s household, and even the price of animals. He signs King Athelstan’s charter as Hoel-Subregulus, or under king.
Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part V, Chapter IV (Names Of Cymric Romance), Section VI (Hoel and Ryence) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)
People recorded with this given name in Wikidata. Their names may use a different spelling, or include it as a middle or baptismal name.
10th-century Welsh king
A little story to keep
Take the story of Hywel with you. Create a personal name passport with its meaning, roots and connections.
06 / Behind the facts
Review status: Source-reported — no editorial review recorded yet. Last data change 2026-10-15.
Baby names in England and Wales: 2025 (boys and girls workbooks, Table 6: all published names)
Office for National Statistics (ONS) · OGL-UK-3.0 · retrieved 2026-10-14
Fichier des prénoms — édition 2026 (naissances 1900 à 2025), fichier national
Insee (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques) · LO-2.0 · retrieved 2026-10-14
South Australia — Popular Baby Names, per-year lists including names given once, 1944-2017
Attorney-General's Department, South Australia (via data.sa.gov.au) · CC-BY-4.0 · retrieved 2026-10-15
NISRA — First Forenames Given to Babies Registered in Northern Ireland, 1997-2025 (full list)
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) · OGL-UK-3.0 · retrieved 2026-10-15
Wiktionary text: CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata: CC0. Commons recordings retain their individual file licences. Complete attribution is available in each group above and alongside each chart.
