Dale
Feminine · “valley”
Dale is given to both — 21,887 girls and 278,156 boys since 1880. See Dale as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Dale is a valley. It is the ordinary northern English word — the Yorkshire Dales carry it — and it became a surname for people who lived in one before it became a name for anybody.
How old is the name Dale?
Dale first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Dale alive today was born around 1951, making them about 74 years old. About 15,500 people named Dale are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dale most popular?
Dale peaked in 1952, reaching #236 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 14,706 places below that high. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From dæl to Dale
The story of Dale
Dale was a topographic surname — someone who lived in the valley — and it crossed into given-name use in twentieth-century America, first for boys. The feminine use followed in the ordinary way, and by the 1930s Dale held a real place on both charts at once, peaking for girls in the mid-1930s. It has stayed genuinely unisex longer than most names that cross.
Meaning
valley
From the Old English dæl and the Old Norse dalr, 'valley'. The Norse form is why the word is strongest in the north of England, where Scandinavian settlement was heaviest, and it survives in dozens of place names across Yorkshire and Cumbria.
How the name formed
- dæl
- Dale
Related forms: Dalr · Dael · Dahl
Pronouncing Dale
DAYL
One syllable, rhyming with 'sail'. Said identically for either sex and in every English accent.
Nicknames for Dale
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
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 19541,095 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #236reached in 1952
- Change vs 2018
- 0.0%5 in 2025, from 5
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.
Dale in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dalr in Norse — related form
- Dael in English — spelling variant
- Dahl in Norwegian — related form
Dales among us
people named Dale are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Dale
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 Ila test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dale's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ila climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ila's path sketches the road Dale is walking now.
Dale 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
Dale beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dale in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is concrete and easy to picture, which is unusual for a surname-name.
- One syllable that pairs cleanly with almost any surname.
- It is genuinely unisex with a real record on both sides.
- It reads as masculine to most modern English speakers.
- It is period-coded to the first half of the twentieth century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Dale
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dales are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 15,500 people named Dale are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dale in 2025?
- Dale ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dale?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Dale — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dale with classmates?
- Dale will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dale
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dale? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dale and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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