Darius
Masculine · “holding firm the good”
Darius is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 54,006 boys against 272 girls since 1880.
Darius comes down to English from the Greek rendering of a Persian royal name, worn by the kings who built Persepolis and the road system that ran across their empire. It has been written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew scripture, and it survives today in Persian as Dariush and in Italian as Dario. Three syllables that open wide and land on a hiss — a name that has been said aloud for about two and a half thousand years.
How old is the name Darius?
Darius was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Darius alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 51,500 people named Darius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Darius most popular?
Darius peaked in 1990, reaching #152 nationally. Today it ranks #788, 636 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Darius appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Dārayavauš (Old Persian) to Darius
The story of Darius
The name belongs first to the Achaemenid kings of Persia — Darius the Great, who ruled in the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, and the two later kings who took his name. Greek historians writing about the Persian wars carried it westward as Dareios, and Latin turned that into Darius, the form English inherited. It also stands in the Hebrew Bible, in the books of Daniel and Ezra, which kept it alive in Christian Europe long after the empire fell. In the United States it has been recorded steadily since the earliest years of national name statistics, rising through the later twentieth century and now easing back from that high point.
Meaning
holding firm the good; possessing goodness
The Old Persian Dārayavauš joins dāraya- 'to hold, possess' with vahu- 'good'. Greek writers reshaped it as Dareios, and Latin gave us the spelling we use.
How the name formed
- DārayavaušOld Persian
- DareiosGreek
- DariusLatin
- Dario / Dariusz
Related forms: Dariush · Dario · Darío · Dariusz · Dareios · Darius
Pronouncing Darius
duh-RY-us
DAIR-ee-us is also widely used in the US, with the stress pulled forward. Both are established; it is worth deciding which one you will introduce him with, because people follow the parents' lead.
Nicknames for Darius
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19982,131 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #152reached in 1990
- Change vs 2023
- −12.3%322 in 2025, from 367
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.
Darius in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dariush in Persian — same name
- Dario in Italian — related form
- Darío in Spanish — related form
- Dariusz in Polish — related form
- Dareios in Greek — transliteration
- Darius in Romanian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Dariuss among us
people named Darius are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 5,305 born in 2025 was named Darius
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 Donnie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Darius's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Donnie climbed just as high around 1950, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Donnie's path sketches the road Darius is walking now.
Darius 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
Where Darius is headed
Darius should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Darius beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Darius in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Written continuously for roughly two and a half millennia, in Persian, Greek, Latin and biblical texts — the record behind it is unusually long and unbroken.
- The spelling is standard in English, Romanian, German and Portuguese, with close cousins in Dario, Darío and Dariusz — it travels without translation.
- Recognizable to almost anyone who has met a history book, so it rarely needs explaining as a name, only as a pronunciation.
- Familiar without being crowded: he is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- The two pronunciations, duh-RY-us and DAIR-ee-us, both sound correct to American ears, so he will spend some of his life correcting people — or answering to either.
- Spellings like Darrius, Darious and Dareus circulate alongside it, which means the plain form gets checked more often than you might expect at appointments and on forms.
- The royal and biblical weight is real; some hear a king when they hear the name. That fades quickly in daily use, but it is there at first introduction.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Darius to the vote.
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What they receive
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Darius
Masculine · #788 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dariuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 51,500 people named Darius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Darius in 2025?
- Darius ranks #788 among US boy names in 2025, with 322 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Darius?
- About 1 in every 5,305 US boys born in 2025 was named Darius — 322 in all.
- Will my child share the name Darius with classmates?
- Darius will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Darius
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elisha#788 · Remi#787 · Barron#790 · Alonso#785 · Ray#791 · Fisher#791 · Jamison#785 · Tony#783
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Darius? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Darius and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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