Daniel
Feminine · “God is my judge”
Daniel is given to boys far more often — 1,982,812 boys against 8,279 girls since 1880. See Daniel as a boy name
Two ordinary English phrases come straight out of one short book of the Bible. The writing on the wall is from Daniel, chapter five, where a hand appears at a feast and writes four words nobody can read. Feet of clay is from chapter two, a statue of gold and iron standing on feet that will not hold it.
How old is the name Daniel?
Daniel first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Daniel alive today was born around 1980, making them about 45 years old. About 7,300 people named Daniel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daniel most popular?
Daniel peaked in 1985, reaching #632 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 10,285 places below that high. See the whole 1985 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Daniyyel to Daniel
The story of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is stranger than its reputation. It changes language partway through: it opens in Hebrew, switches to Aramaic in the middle of a sentence in chapter two, runs in Aramaic for six chapters, and switches back. Nobody has fully explained why. The stories in the Aramaic half are the famous ones — the fiery furnace, the lions' den, the feast where a disembodied hand writes on the plaster — and they are told as court tales, about a man who serves foreign kings without ever quite belonging to them. The name went into Greek and Latin unchanged, into every European language after that, and into English in the ordinary way, so completely that it now sounds like it has no origin at all.
Meaning
God is my judge
Hebrew Daniyyel: din, to judge, with el, God. It is a sentence rather than a description — the kind of name Hebrew builds constantly, where the child's name is a short statement about God. Michael, who is like God, and Samuel, God has heard, are made the same way.
How the name formed
- Daniyyel
- Danielus
- Daniel
Related forms: Daniyyel · Daniil · Daniele · Daniel · Danyal · Deiniol
Pronouncing Daniel
DAN-yul
Two or three syllables depending on how carefully it is said, stress on the first. Spanish and Portuguese put it on the last, dah-nee-EL, and Russian Daniil has three clear vowels. The Hebrew is dah-nee-YEL.
Nicknames for Daniel
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 1985294 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #632reached in 1985
- Change vs 2023
- −57.9%8 in 2025, from 19
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.
Daniel in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Daniyyel in Hebrew — same name
- Daniil in Russian — same name
- Daniele in Italian — same name
- Daniel in Portuguese — same name
- Danyal in Arabic — transliteration
- Deiniol in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Daniels among us
people named Daniel are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Daniel
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 Bethel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daniel's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bethel climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bethel's path sketches the road Daniel is walking now.
Daniel 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
Daniel beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daniel in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled identically in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
- A settled meaning that is a complete sentence rather than an adjective.
- Four short forms covering formal, warm, childhood and adult use.
- Continuous use for more than two thousand years with no gap in the record.
- It is one of the most given names in the English-speaking world, and has been for decades.
- Dan is what most people will arrive at, so it is worth liking the short form as much as the long one.
- The very few girls given this exact spelling will be read as boys on every form.
- It is so familiar that it carries no signal at all — which is the point for some families and the objection for others.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Daniel
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daniels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,300 people named Daniel are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Daniel in 2025?
- Daniel ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daniel?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Daniel — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daniel with classmates?
- Daniel will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daniel
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daniel? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Daniel and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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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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