Dafne
Feminine · “laurel”
Dafne is the Italian, Spanish and Polish spelling of a name the Greeks gave to the laurel tree — two syllables, no silent letters, the same word that crowned victors and poets. It carries an unusually long record for so short a name, from Ovid's telling of the nymph Daphne to the Florentine stage, where a work called Dafne, set to music by Jacopo Peri around 1598, is generally counted the first opera ever written.
How old is the name Dafne?
Dafne first appears in US birth records in 1988 — 37 years ago. The typical Dafne is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,500 people named Dafne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dafne most popular?
Dafne peaked in 2024, reaching #873 nationally. Today it ranks #1047, 174 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Dafne appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Δάφνη (Daphne) to Dafne
The story of Dafne
The Greek word dáphnē named the bay laurel, and in Greek myth Daphne was the nymph who, fleeing Apollo, was turned into that tree; Ovid gave the story its most-read form in the Metamorphoses in the first century AD. Latin kept the name, and Italian, Spanish and Polish dropped the Greek-derived 'ph' for a plain f, giving Dafne. Renaissance Italy took the myth up again as a subject for song and stage, which is how the spelling traveled with the story. In the United States it arrives mainly through Spanish-speaking families, and its strongest showing is in Texas, California and Florida.
Meaning
laurel, bay tree
Greek δάφνη, the bay laurel — the tree whose leaves were woven into wreaths for victors and poets.
How the name formed
- ΔάφνηDaphne
- DaphneLatin
- Dafne
Related forms: Daphne · Δάφνη / Dafni · Daphné · Dafne · Dafna · Dafne
Pronouncing Dafne
DAHF-neh
That is the Spanish and Italian reading, with a clear final vowel. English speakers who know the name as Daphne will often say DAF-nee instead, and both are heard in the US. Either is easy to correct, since the spelling gives no trouble beyond that.
Nicknames for Dafne
High
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
- 1988
- Most girls named
- 2024309 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #873reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −23.3%237 in 2025, from 309
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.
Dafne in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Daphne in English — spelling variant
- Δάφνη / Dafni in Greek — transliteration
- Daphné in French — same name
- Dafne in Italian — same name
- Dafna in Hebrew — related form
- Dafne in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Dafnes among us
people named Dafne are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 6,782 born in 2025 was named Dafne
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dafne
- #1047
- Dafne on the 2025 chart
- #156
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dafne went to 237 girls in 2025, but Daphne, Daphnee and Dafnne are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 1,998, which makes it the 156th most-given girls’ name of the year — 891 places above the chart.
- Daphne1,740
- Dafne237
- Daphnee11
- Dafnne10
About 1 girl in 804 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 6,782 for Dafne itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Diya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dafne's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Diya climbed just as high around 2004, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Diya's path sketches the road Dafne is walking now.
Dafne is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Dafne is headed
Dafne is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 78% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Dafne beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dafne in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same in Italian, Spanish and Polish, and pronounceable on sight in all three.
- Familiar to English speakers through Daphne, so it is recognized even where the f spelling is new.
- Two syllables, six letters, no silent letters to explain.
- A documented record stretching back to ancient Greek, with a clear and pleasant meaning attached.
- Rare enough in American schools that a child is unlikely to share it, while still being on the rise.
- Most Americans will reach for Daphne first, so expect a lifetime of gentle spelling corrections — and of hearing DAF-nee where you meant DAHF-neh.
- The two pronunciations sit side by side in the US, which means the name may be said one way at home and another at school. Worth deciding early which one you will correct people toward.
- Daffy is the shortening English-speaking children land on soonest, and Daffy Duck is still widely known.
- It is climbing rather than settled, so the name is likely to be somewhat more familiar by the time your child is grown than it is now.
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What they receive
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Dafne
Feminine · #1047 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dafnes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,500 people named Dafne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dafne?
- Dafne is one of 4 recorded spellings. Daphne is the more common one — 1,740 births in 2025 against 237 for Dafne.
- How popular is the name Dafne in 2025?
- Dafne ranks #1047 among US girl names in 2025, with 237 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dafne?
- About 1 in every 6,782 US girls born in 2025 was named Dafne — 237 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dafne with classmates?
- Dafne will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dafne
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rosalyn#1047 · Harlee#1047 · Lilyana#1047 · Inara#1047 · Eimy#1043 · Lorraine#1043 · Whitney#1043 · Paisleigh#1043
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dafne? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dafne and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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