From Old French meaning 'to pull' or 'stubborn'; also linked to the place name Tirrell.
Terrell began as an English surname before it settled into life as a given name. Most etymologists trace it to the Norman French nickname tirel, often glossed as something like “to pull,” and probably first applied to a stubborn or headstrong person. Like many surnames that crossed into first-name use, it carries a slightly aristocratic, inherited feel at its root, but in American usage it developed a very different social life.
It can also echo the surname of the civil-rights leader Mary Church Terrell, which gives the name an additional layer of Black historical resonance. As a first name, Terrell rose most strongly in the United States in the late twentieth century, especially from the 1970s through the 1990s, when surname-style names and distinctive two-syllable boys’ names were both in favor. In African American communities it became especially familiar, often with the stress on the second syllable, giving it a different rhythm from the older surname form.
Public figures such as football stars Terrell Davis and Terrell Owens helped fix the name in the cultural ear as athletic, confident, and modern. What makes Terrell interesting is the way it transformed from a medieval byname into a strongly American personal name. Today it can sound both classic and specifically late-modern: a name with Norman roots, civil-rights associations, and a distinctly twentieth-century American arc.