Danial
Masculine · “Hebrew Daniyyel”
Danial is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 9,394 boys against 80 girls since 1880.
Danial is a misspelling in the United States and the correct spelling in Pakistan. Urdu and Persian render the name that way as a matter of standard transliteration, so the same six letters are an error on one side of the world and orthodox on the other. Spelling is only ever correct relative to a system.
How old is the name Danial?
Danial was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Danial alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 7,200 people named Danial are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Danial most popular?
Danial peaked in 1954, reaching #509 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 7,734 places below that high. See the whole 1954 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Daniyyel to Danial
The story of Danial
Daniel is one of a small group of names carried by all three Abrahamic traditions with recognizable forms in each: Hebrew Daniyyel, Greek Daniel, Arabic Danyal, Persian and Urdu Danial. The Quran does not name him but Islamic tradition treats him as a prophet, and a shrine in Susa in Iran is identified as his tomb. The transliteration difference is systematic rather than casual. Arabic and Persian script write the long vowels and leave the short ones to the reader, so a romaniser has to decide which vowels to supply, and the conventions developed in British India settled on this arrangement. What that means practically is that a Danial in Karachi and a Daniel in Kansas have identical names and neither spelling is a variant of the other; both are attempts to write a Hebrew word in a script that did not produce it.
Meaning
Hebrew Daniyyel, God is my judge
From Hebrew dan, he judged, and el, God. Danial is the standard Urdu and Persian romanisation of the name, and is also an American variant spelling of Daniel with the last two vowels transposed. The 1954 American peak predates significant South Asian migration, so bearers of that period are almost certainly the second kind and more recent ones may be the first.
How the name formed
- Daniyyel
- Daniel
- Danial
Related forms: Danial · Danyal · Daniel
Pronouncing Danial
DAN-yul
Two or three syllables in English, stress on the first. The Urdu Danial is dah-nee-YAAL with the stress at the end and three full syllables, which is closer to the Hebrew than the English form is.
Nicknames for Danial
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
- 1963189 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #509reached in 1954
- Change vs 2022
- −47.1%9 in 2025, from 17
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.
Danial in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Danial in Urdu — transliteration
- Danyal in Arabic — same name
- Daniel in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York.
Danials among us
people named Danial are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Danial
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Danial
- #8243
- Danial on the 2025 chart
- #886
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Danial went to 9 boys in 2025, but Daniyal and Danyal are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 42, which makes it the 886th most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,357 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 40,668 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 189,786 for Danial 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 Casimer test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Danial's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Casimer climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Casimer's path sketches the road Danial is walking now.
Danial 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
Danial beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Danial in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and reaches back to the Hebrew Bible.
- The name is recognized in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions alike.
- Dan is a universally understood short form.
- In American contexts it will be corrected to Daniel constantly.
- The English and Urdu pronunciations differ substantially.
- The spelling reads as an error to English speakers and as standard to Urdu ones.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Danial
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Danials are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,200 people named Danial are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Danial?
- Danial is one of 3 recorded spellings. Daniyal is the more common one — 21 births in 2025 against 9 for Danial.
- How popular is the name Danial in 2025?
- Danial ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Danial?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Danial — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Danial with classmates?
- Danial will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Danial
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Ashford#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Danial? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Danial and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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