Darryn
Masculine
Darryn is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,723 boys against 49 girls since 1880.
Darren has no etymology. It appears in American records in the 1950s, spreads fast, and comes from nowhere identifiable. The Irish and Gaelic meanings offered for it in name books are inventions, written to fill a gap that the evidence leaves open.
How old is the name Darryn?
Darryn first appears in US birth records in 1958 — 67 years ago. The typical Darryn alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 1,600 people named Darryn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Darryn most popular?
Darryn peaked in 1965, reaching #815 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,899 places below that high. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Darren to Darryn
The story of Darryn
Darren's rise is well documented and its source is not. The name is not in nineteenth-century American records in any quantity, appears in the 1950s, climbs steadily and peaks in the 1970s. Two causes are usually proposed. Darren McGavin, a working actor from the late 1940s, is one; the character Darrin Stephens in the television series Bewitched, which ran from 1964, is the other, though the name was already rising before the program began. The Irish derivations in circulation, which usually cite a Gaelic word for great, do not correspond to any attested name or word, and appear first in twentieth-century American name books rather than in any Irish source. That is the honest position: a common name of the second half of the twentieth century whose origin nobody has established.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Darryn is a respelling of Darren, a name with no established origin. It is essentially absent from records before the 1950s. Suggestions include a surname, an Irish source, and the actor Darren McGavin, who took the name in the 1940s. The glosses given in name books, usually great or little great one, correspond to no documented word. The peak of this spelling is 1965.
How the name formed
- Darren
- Darryn
Related forms: Darren · Darin
Pronouncing Darryn
DAIR-in
Two syllables, stress on the first. Darryn, Darren, Darin and Daren are homophones, because the second syllable is unstressed.
Nicknames for Darryn
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
- 1958
- Most boys named
- 196582 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #815reached in 1965
- Change vs 2024
- +16.7%7 in 2025, 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.
Darryn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Darren in English — spelling variant
- Darin in English — spelling variant
Darryns among us
people named Darryn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Darryn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Darryn
- #9714
- Darryn on the 2025 chart
- #851
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Darryn went to 7 boys in 2025, but Darrin, Darin and Daryn are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 77, which makes it the 851st most-given boys’ name of the year — 8,863 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 22,183 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 244,011 for Darryn 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 Burnell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Darryn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Burnell climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Burnell's path sketches the road Darryn is walking now.
Darryn 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
Darryn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Darryn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables and six letters, easy to say.
- The sound is completely familiar.
- Daz works as a short form in British use.
- Darren is far commoner and reads as the correct spelling.
- The name has no documented meaning.
- The 1965 peak places it in the mid-century.
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Darryn
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Darryns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Darryn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Darryn?
- Darryn is one of 4 recorded spellings. Darrin is the more common one — 34 births in 2025 against 7 for Darryn.
- How popular is the name Darryn in 2025?
- Darryn ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Darryn?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Darryn — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Darryn with classmates?
- Darryn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Darryn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Darryn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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