Daphne
Feminine · “Laurel”
Daphne is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 44,182 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Daphne is the ancient Greek word for the laurel tree, carried into English unchanged in spelling and still said the Greek way, with the final syllable sounded. It belongs to one of the best-known stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and to the woman who wrote Rebecca. Two syllables, a soft f in the middle, and no shortening required.
How old is the name Daphne?
Daphne first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Daphne alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 39,500 people named Daphne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Daphne most popular?
Daphne peaked in 2025, reaching #178 nationally. Today it ranks #178, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Where it comes from
From δάφνη (Greek: laurel) to Daphne
The story of Daphne
The name is the Greek word δάφνη, laurel. In Greek myth Daphne was a nymph pursued by Apollo who was turned into a laurel tree to escape him — the version most people know is the one Ovid told in Latin verse around the turn of the first century, and the laurel became Apollo's own tree. From there the word served as a name in Greek and Latin, was picked up by English writers with a taste for classical botany and myth, and settled into ordinary English use by the nineteenth century. The Cornish novelist Daphne du Maurier, born in the early twentieth century, kept it in front of readers for decades.
Meaning
Laurel, bay tree
Daphne is simply the Greek noun for the laurel. The laurel wreath was the Greek and Roman crown of victors and poets, which is why the word traveled so widely.
Cultural footprint
Daphne du Maurier (b. 1907) — Wrote Rebecca and The Birds
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- δάφνηGreek: laurel
- ΔάφνηDaphne
- DaphneLatin
- DaphneEnglish
Related forms: Δάφνη · Daphné · Dafne · Dafne · Daphne · Дафна
Pronouncing Daphne
DAF-nee
Stress on the first syllable; ph is f. The final e is spoken, not silent — people who read it as a silent English -e sometimes try DAFN before hearing it aloud.
Nicknames for Daphne
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
- 1886
- Most girls named
- 20251,740 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #178reached in 2025
- Change vs 2022
- +53.7%1,740 in 2025, from 1,132
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.
Daphne in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Δάφνη in Greek — same name
- Daphné in French — same name
- Dafne in Italian — spelling variant
- Dafne in Spanish — spelling variant
- Daphne in Dutch — same name
- Дафна in Russian — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Daphnes among us
people named Daphne are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 924 born in 2025 was named Daphne
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Daphne
- #178
- Daphne on the 2025 chart
- #156
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Daphne went to 1,740 girls in 2025, but Dafne, Daphnee and Dafnne are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 1,998, which makes it the 156th most-given girls’ name of the year — 22 places above the chart.
- Daphne1,740
- Dafne237
- Daphnee11
- Dafnne10
About 1 girl in 804 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 924 for Daphne 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 Nadia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Daphne's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nadia climbed just as high around 2005, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nadia's path sketches the road Daphne is walking now.
Daphne is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Daphne is headed
Daphne looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 31% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
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.
Daphne beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Daphne in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One dominant spelling in English, and it is the ancient one — no family debate over how to write it.
- Recognizable across Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch with barely a change of letters.
- A documented history stretching from ancient Greek to today, without a gap in use.
- Short forms already exist and are worn in — Daph, Daffy — but the full name works fine on its own.
- Two clear syllables, easy for a small child to say and to hear across a classroom.
- The final -e catches English readers who expect it to be silent, so expect a small share of first-attempt DAFNs, usually corrected once.
- Daffy Duck is the obvious playground joke on the diminutive. It has been available for generations and has not sunk the name, but it is there.
- The myth behind the name is a story of pursuit and escape, and not every parent wants that as the footnote. The word itself just means laurel.
- The trend line is currently upward, so a Daphne born now may meet more of her name than the present picture suggests.
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What they receive
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Daphne
Feminine · #178 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daphnes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 39,500 people named Daphne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Daphne?
- Daphne is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,740 of the 1,998 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Dafne, Daphnee and Dafnne.
- How popular is the name Daphne in 2025?
- Daphne ranks #178 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,740 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Daphne?
- About 1 in every 924 US girls born in 2025 was named Daphne — 1,740 in all.
- Will my child share the name Daphne with classmates?
- Daphne will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Daphne
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lilah#179 · Isabel#176 · Freya#176 · Amaya#180 · Callie#175 · Sutton#181 · Annie#182 · Ariella#174
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Daphne? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Daphne and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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