Hazel

Hazel comes from the English name of the hazel tree, Old English hæsel, and was adopted as a given name in the late Victorian period along with other plant names. The word also describes a light brown eye colour, after the colour of hazelnuts. In Irish mythology, hazelnuts falling into a sacred pool fed the Salmon of Knowledge, and hazel rods were long used for water divining. In fiction, Hazel Grace Lancaster narrates John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars, and in Richard Adams’s Watership Down, Hazel is the rabbit who leads his companions to a new home.