Darryl comes from the Norman surname d'Airelle, meaning "from Airelle", a place in Normandy, and only became a first name in the 19th century. It was hugely popular in the 1950s and 1960s, with bearers such as the baseball star Darryl Strawberry and the Run-DMC rapper Darryl McDaniels. In the United States Darryl ranked number 550 in 2000, dropped out of the top 1000 in the 2010s and stands at number 2115 among boys' names in 2025.