Dante
Feminine · Latin roots · “enduring”
Dante is given to boys far more often — 51,587 boys against 466 girls since 1880. See Dante as a boy name
Dante entered the US charts in 1968, peaked at #3612 in 1977, is rarely given in 2025 — given to only a few children a year.
How old is the name Dante?
Dante first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Dante alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 500 people named Dante are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dante most popular?
Dante peaked in 1977, reaching #3612 nationally. See the whole 1977 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Durans (Latin) to Dante
The story of Dante
The name begins as Latin durans, 'enduring', which gave medieval Italy the given name Durante; Dante is the clipped everyday version of it. Its fame rests on one man: Durante degli Alighieri of Florence, known to everyone as Dante, who finished the Divine Comedy in the early fourteenth century and in doing so helped fix the Tuscan dialect as the Italian language. From there the name traveled with Italian emigration into Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking South America and into the English-speaking world, where it appears in American records from the early twentieth century onward. It has stayed in use ever since without any single decade claiming it.
Meaning
enduring, lasting
Dante is a contracted form of the Italian name Durante, which comes from Latin durans, durante — 'enduring'.
How the name formed
- DuransLatin
- DuranteItalian
- Dante
Related forms: Durante · Dante · Dante · Dante · Dante · Durans
Pronouncing Dante
DAHN-tay
DAHN-tay follows the Italian and is the standard American pronunciation. An older English tradition said the poet's name as DAN-tee, and you will still hear that from readers who met the name first in print.
Nicknames for Dante
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
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 199824 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3612reached in 1977
- Change vs 2016
- −16.7%5 in 2017, from 6
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.
Dante in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Durante in Italian — related form
- Dante in Italian — same name
- Dante in Spanish — same name
- Dante in Portuguese — same name
- Dante in French — same name
- Durans in Latin — related form
Dantes among us
people named Dante are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Dante sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
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Dante
Feminine · Latin roots
Frequently asked
- How many Dantes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Dante are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dante in 2025?
- Dante is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Dante with classmates?
- Dante will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
Dorothy#421 · Donna#1962 · Deborah#862 · Debra#4460 · Diane#2607 · Doris#2895 · Denise#1673 · Danielle#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dante? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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