Dari
Feminine · “Persian dari”
Dari is given to both — 691 girls and 45 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Dari is the name of Persian as spoken in Afghanistan, and the word means of the court, from dar, a gate or a royal court. Whether Dari and Farsi are two languages or one is a political question rather than a linguistic one, and the answer depends on which side of a border you ask.
How old is the name Dari?
Dari first appears in US birth records in 1945 — 80 years ago. The typical Dari alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 600 people named Dari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dari most popular?
Dari peaked in 1960, reaching #2649 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 5,713 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Daria to Dari
The story of Dari
Persian is spoken across three countries under three names: Farsi in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan and Tajik in Tajikistan, the last written in Cyrillic. Linguists generally treat them as varieties of one language, mutually intelligible with differences of vocabulary and accent comparable to those between British and American English. The names are political. Afghanistan adopted Dari as the official term in 1964, partly to assert a distinct national identity and partly because the word has a long literary history: medieval writers used dari for the courtly literary register of Persian as against local dialects. Tajik was separated by Soviet language policy and the change of script. So a language with a continuous thousand-year literature is now administratively three, and the naming reflects borders rather than grammar.
Meaningscholars disagree
Persian dari, of the court
Dari is the Afghan standard variety of Persian, named from dar, a gate or court, so the language of the court. As an American given name Dari is more likely a short form of Darlene, Daria or Darla, and the 1960 peak sits with those. Daria is separately the feminine of Darius, from Old Persian Darayavaus. Which applies to a given bearer is not recoverable.
How the name formed
- Daria
- Dari
Related forms: Dari · Darrie
Pronouncing Dari
DAR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. In Persian the language name is dah-REE with the stress at the end. Dari, Darrie and Darry are homophones in American English.
Nicknames for Dari
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
- 1945
- Most girls named
- 202133 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2649reached in 1960
- Change vs 2024
- −29.4%12 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.
Dari in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dari in Persian — related form
- Darrie in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida.
Daris among us
people named Dari are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Dari
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 Esperansa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dari's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Esperansa climbed just as high around 1932, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Esperansa's path sketches the road Dari is walking now.
Dari 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
Dari beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dari in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, simple and easy to spell.
- It works as a full name or a short form of several longer ones.
- It is a real word in a major world language.
- Which longer name it stands for is not recoverable.
- It reads as a nickname to most people.
- The Persian language name is stressed differently.
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What they receive
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Dari
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Daris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Dari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dari in 2025?
- Dari ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dari?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Dari — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dari with classmates?
- Dari will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dari
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dari? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dari and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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