Damon
Masculine · Greek roots · “to tame”
Damon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 68,841 boys against 316 girls since 1880.
Damon is Greek and old — a name written in the alphabet of Athens long before it reached English. Virgil gave it to a singing shepherd in his Eclogues, and Latin passed it on to English poets who kept the pastoral flavor. Two syllables, an open first vowel, and a spelling almost nobody has to ask about twice.
How old is the name Damon?
Damon was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Damon alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 62,500 people named Damon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Damon most popular?
Damon peaked in 1976, reaching #104 nationally. Today it ranks #501, 397 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Δάμων (Greek) to Damon
The story of Damon
The name begins as Greek Δάμων, formed on damazō, 'to tame'. It belonged to real men in the classical Greek world and then to literature: Virgil, writing in the first century BC, names one of the duelling shepherd-singers of his eighth Eclogue Damon, and the Renaissance and Restoration poets who imitated him kept the name in circulation as a pastoral standby. Greek legend also gave it to one half of the friendship of Damon and Pythias, the pair of Syracusan Pythagoreans whose story of a life pledged for a friend was retold in Latin, in Elizabethan drama, and in Victorian schoolbooks. English-speaking parents began using it as a first name in earnest much later, and its rise in the United States was a twentieth-century affair.
Meaning
to tame, to subdue
From the Greek verb damazō, 'to tame'. The same root stands behind the name Damian.
How the name formed
- ΔάμωνGreek
- DamonLatin
- DamonEnglish
Related forms: Δάμων · Damon · Damon · Damon · Damián · Damiano
Pronouncing Damon
DAY-mun
Standard in American English, stress on the first syllable. A classical DAM-un (rhyming with 'salmon') is heard when the ancient Greek figure is meant, but the name as given to children is DAY-mun.
Nicknames for Damon
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19742,360 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #104reached in 1976
- Change vs 2022
- −18.8%604 in 2025, from 744
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.
Damon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Δάμων in Greek — transliteration
- Damon in French — same name
- Damon in German — same name
- Damon in Dutch — same name
- Damián in Spanish — related form
- Damiano in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Damons among us
people named Damon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,828 born in 2025 was named Damon
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 Manuel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Damon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Manuel climbed just as high around 1906, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Manuel's path sketches the road Damon is walking now.
Damon 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 Damon is headed
Damon 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.
Damon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Damon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in English, with no accents and no competing common variants to correct.
- An unbroken written record from classical Greek through Latin and into English poetry.
- Identical spelling works in French, German and Dutch; Damián and Damiano are close relatives elsewhere.
- Two syllables with a clear stress, which pairs easily with both short and long surnames.
- It sits one letter away from 'daemon' and close in sound to 'demon' — most people never make the connection, but some children will hear the joke at least once.
- Damon and Damian are constantly swapped by people who half-remember which one they were told. Expect to repeat it.
- Strongly represented among Americans now in their forties, so it may read as belonging to a particular generation rather than as antique or brand new — a trade-off that also means it is well known and easy to say.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Damon to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Damon
Masculine · Greek roots · #501 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Damons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 62,500 people named Damon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Damon in 2025?
- Damon ranks #501 among US boy names in 2025, with 604 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Damon?
- About 1 in every 2,828 US boys born in 2025 was named Damon — 604 in all.
- Will my child share the name Damon with classmates?
- Damon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Damon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Odin#501 · Brantley#499 · Zaire#503 · Royce#499 · Jasiah#498 · Ronin#504 · Alessandro#497 · Pierce#505
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Damon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Damon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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