Dana
Masculine
Dana is given to both — 53,287 boys and 193,555 girls since 1880. See Dana as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Dana is a name that several unrelated languages arrived at independently, which is why it has been given to men in one country and women in another for as long as records exist.
How old is the name Dana?
Dana was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Dana alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 40,000 people named Dana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dana most popular?
Dana peaked in 1954, reaching #165 nationally. Today it ranks #4139, 3,974 places below that high. See the whole 1954 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Dane to Dana
The story of Dana
The English surname route is the one that produced the American masculine name: families took Dana as a given name for sons in the nineteenth century, and the writer Richard Henry Dana, whose account of life at sea was read everywhere in the 1840s, gave it particular visibility. The name held a masculine place in the American top hundred and seventy for boys through the 1960s, by which point the feminine use, arriving from other directions, was overtaking it.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Several origins compete. The English surname Dana is generally read as 'a Dane', from the medieval term for Scandinavian settlers. Hebrew has Dana as a feminine of Dan, 'he judged'. Irish mythology has Danu, a mother goddess whose people are the Tuatha Dé Danann. Persian has a word meaning wise. None of these is the source of all the others.
How the name formed
- Dane
- Dana
Related forms: Dana · Dana · Dana · Dana
Pronouncing Dana
DAY-nuh
Two syllables, stress on the first, in English. Czech, Romanian and Hebrew all say DAH-nuh with a broad first vowel.
Nicknames for Dana
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
- 19541,741 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #165reached in 1954
- Change vs 2022
- +25.0%25 in 2025, from 20
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.
Dana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dana in Hebrew — same name
- Dana in Romanian — same name
- Dana in Czech — same name
- Dana in Persian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania.
Danas among us
people named Dana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 68,323 born in 2025 was named Dana
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 Carroll test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carroll climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carroll's path sketches the road Dana is walking now.
Dana 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 Dana is headed
Dana should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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.
Dana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It functions as a real name in at least five unrelated languages.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk in English.
- It has a genuine and substantial masculine record in America.
- In American use the name now reads as feminine to most people.
- The origins are genuinely multiple, so it cannot promise a single meaning.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Dana
Masculine · #4139 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Danas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 40,000 people named Dana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dana in 2025?
- Dana ranks #4139 among US boy names in 2025, with 25 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dana?
- About 1 in every 68,323 US boys born in 2025 was named Dana — 25 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dana with classmates?
- Dana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Mose#4139 · Lucious#4139 · Karsten#4139 · Nikita#4139 · Hasani#4139 · Jomar#4139 · Fionn#4139 · Earnest#4139
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dana and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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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