Damien
Masculine · “to tame”
Damien is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 64,757 boys against 261 girls since 1880.
Damien is the French shape of a name the Greek-speaking world was already using in late antiquity: Damianos, built on the verb meaning to tame or subdue. It belonged to one of the two brother physicians venerated as Cosmas and Damian, and in the nineteenth century to Father Damien, the Belgian priest who spent his life among the leprosy patients of Molokai. The two syllables land softly, the second one barely leaning on the tongue.
How old is the name Damien?
Damien first appears in US birth records in 1936 — 89 years ago. The typical Damien alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 63,000 people named Damien are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Damien most popular?
Damien peaked in 1978, reaching #161 nationally. Today it ranks #352, 191 places below that high. See the whole 1978 chart.
Damien appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Damianos to Damien
The story of Damien
The name begins as Greek Damianos and passes into Latin as Damianus, which is how it traveled through the medieval West. Its early carrier was Damian, one of the pair of physician brothers honored with Cosmas in the early Christian church and long taken as patrons of doctors and pharmacists; churches bearing their joint dedication spread the name across Italy, Spain, Poland and Greece. French turned Damianus into Damien, and it was that spelling the Belgian missionary Jozef De Veuster took as his religious name before sailing to Hawaii. English speakers have used both the French Damien and the Latin-looking Damian for generations, which is why the two forms sit side by side in American records rather than one replacing the other.
Meaning
to tame, to subdue
From Greek Damianos, formed on damazein, 'to tame'. The same root stands behind the Greek name Damon.
How the name formed
- Damianos
- Damianus
- Damiano
- Damien
Related forms: Damián · Damiano · Damian · Damião · Damianos · Demyan
Pronouncing Damien
DAY-mee-uhn
Two pronunciations circulate in the US: DAY-mee-uhn and DAM-ee-uhn, with a closer-to-French dam-YEN heard in some families. All are accepted, so it is worth deciding early which one you will correct people toward.
Nicknames for Damien
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
- 1936
- Most boys named
- 20072,265 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #161reached in 1978
- Change vs 2023
- −7.7%935 in 2025, from 1,013
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.
Damien in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Damián in Spanish — same name
- Damiano in Italian — same name
- Damian in Polish — same name
- Damião in Portuguese — same name
- Damianos in Greek — transliteration
- Demyan in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Damiens among us
people named Damien are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,827 born in 2025 was named Damien
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 Stuart test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Damien's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stuart climbed just as high around 1960, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stuart's path sketches the road Damien is walking now.
Damien 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
Where Damien is headed
Damien should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Damien beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Damien in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognizable across Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Greek in forms close enough that no one has to relearn it.
- A documented record stretching from the early Christian church to the present, with no long gap in use.
- Steadily present in American records for generations without ever crowding a classroom.
- Spelled phonetically enough that most people get it right after hearing it once.
- The 1976 film The Omen gave the name to its child antagonist, and some adults still make the connection instantly. It has faded a good deal with time, but it has not disappeared.
- Damien and Damian are both in wide use, so expect a lifetime of confirming which spelling. The same goes for the DAY- versus DAM- first syllable.
- It is stepping back from where it once stood in American use, which means a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate — pleasant for some families, less so if you want a name people hear daily.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Damien
Masculine · #352 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Damiens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 63,000 people named Damien are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Damien in 2025?
- Damien ranks #352 among US boy names in 2025, with 935 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Damien?
- About 1 in every 1,827 US boys born in 2025 was named Damien — 935 in all.
- Will my child share the name Damien with classmates?
- Damien will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Damien
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ibrahim#351 · Santino#353 · Leonel#350 · Hendrix#354 · Joaquin#355 · Kade#348 · Ezequiel#348 · Briggs#356
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Damien? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Damien and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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