Daegan
Masculine · “Irish dubh”
Daegan is given to both — 904 boys and 48 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Irish surnames are full of double diminutives. Duggan, Deegan, Flanagan, Corrigan and Hogan all end in a suffix that means little, attached to a name that already had one, so the whole means something like the little little dark one.
How old is the name Daegan?
Daegan first appears in US birth records in 1993 — 32 years ago. The typical Daegan alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 900 people named Daegan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daegan most popular?
Daegan peaked in 2007, reaching #2185 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 8,510 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Duibhginn to Daegan
The story of Daegan
Irish forms diminutives with -an and -in, and it forms them freely, including on names that already carry one. Dubh, dark, gives Dubhan, the little dark one, and then Duibhginn and Dubhagain, which anglicize as Deegan and Duggan; Aodh gives Aodhan, which gives Aodhagan; Ciar gives Ciaran and then Ciarnan. Because the suffix was so productive, a large part of the Irish surname stock consists of a short root and two endings, and the roots themselves are usually colors or simple adjectives: dark, fair, red, brown, slender, sharp. The modern American names built on that stock, Keegan, Deegan, Teagan and Daegan, keep the shape and lose the analysis, which is why they rhyme so precisely with one another.
Meaningscholars disagree
Irish dubh, dark
Daegan is most plausibly a respelling of Deegan, from Irish O Duibhginn, containing dubh, dark or black. It may equally be an American blend on the model of Teagan and Keegan. The peak is 2007.
How the name formed
- Duibhginn
- Deegan
- Daegan
Related forms: Deegan · O Duibhginn
Pronouncing Daegan
DAY-gun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Deegan is DEE-gun; this spelling shifts the first vowel.
Nicknames for Daegan
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1993
- Most boys named
- 200761 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2185reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −33.3%6 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Daegan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Deegan in English — spelling variant
- O Duibhginn in Irish — same name
Daegans among us
people named Daegan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Daegan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Salbador test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daegan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Salbador climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Salbador's path sketches the road Daegan is walking now.
Daegan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Daegan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daegan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables with a firm opening.
- It fits the current Irish-sounding pattern without being crowded.
- The ae digraph makes the first vowel explicit.
- Deegan is the standard spelling and has a different first vowel.
- It will be heard as Keegan or Teagan.
- The 2007 peak dates it closely.
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Daegan
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daegans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Daegan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Daegan in 2025?
- Daegan ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daegan?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Daegan — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daegan with classmates?
- Daegan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daegan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daegan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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