David

2,813,017 people in America carry this name — ranked #4 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it DAY vihd

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

D EY1 V IH0 D — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 2,813,017 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 931.4 about 1 in 118 people
  • As a surname 45,954 ranked #732 the other way round

Where David comes from and what it means

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “beloved”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

David name popularity by year

3,651,803 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1955, with 86,472 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50s 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit David

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • David Daniel — runs together
  • David Donald — runs together
  • David Dennis — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

David has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Boys or girls: who is called David?

99.9% men
2,554 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Same syllables and stress as David

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Where in America David is thickest on the ground

In Rhode Island the name is given 1.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Rhode Island ×1.7
  • the District of Columbia ×1.4
  • Delaware ×1.4
  • West Virginia ×1.3
  • Massachusetts ×1.3

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

This name in other languages

  • Davy English
  • Tavid Esth
  • Taffy Welsh
  • Davie Scottish
  • Dabko Lus
  • Dabit Lus
  • Davidu Wall
  • Datsch Dant
  • Daveed Russian
  • Tafline Welsh
  • Dawfydd Welsh
  • Davidas Lett
  • Davidde Italian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Who answers to it now

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 76.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.6%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 12.8%
  • Two or more races — 2.4%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.3%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin