Dartagnan
Masculine · “French "of Artagnan”
D'Artagnan was a real musketeer, and Dumas found him in a forgery. The Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan, published in 1700, were written by Courtilz de Sandras and passed off as the man's own — and that fake memoir is the direct source of The Three Musketeers.
How old is the name Dartagnan?
Dartagnan first appears in US birth records in 1960 — 65 years ago. The typical Dartagnan alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 1,100 people named Dartagnan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dartagnan most popular?
Dartagnan peaked in 1999, reaching #1604 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 6,075 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Where it comes from
From Artagnan to Dartagnan
The story of Dartagnan
The real d'Artagnan served Louis XIV, commanded the King's Musketeers, arrested Fouquet on the king's orders, and was killed at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Twenty-seven years later Gaspard de Courtilz de Sandras published a set of memoirs in his name — invented, but built on real people and real events, a common commercial genre of the period. Dumas found a copy in the Marseille public library in the 1840s, borrowed it and, by his own account, never returned it, and used it as the frame for The Three Musketeers in 1844. The American given name peaks in 1999.
Meaning
French "of Artagnan", a place in Gascony
Charles de Batz de Castelmore took the name d'Artagnan from his mother's family and their estate in Gascony; the apostrophe marks the preposition de, of. Artagnan is a village in the Hautes-Pyrénées whose name is of uncertain further origin. Dartagnan without the apostrophe is the American record's rendering, since punctuation is stripped from name fields.
How the name formed
- Artagnan
- d'Artagnan
- Dartagnan
Related forms: d'Artagnan · Dartañán
Pronouncing Dartagnan
dar-tan-YAHN
Three syllables, stress on the last. The gn is the sound of Spanish ñ or Italian gn, and the final an is a nasal vowel in French; American speakers usually say dar-TAN-yun.
Nicknames for Dartagnan
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
- 1960
- Most boys named
- 199967 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1604reached in 1999
- Change vs 2024
- −33.3%10 in 2025, from 15
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.
Dartagnan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- d'Artagnan in French — same name
- Dartañán in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Dartagnans among us
people named Dartagnan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Dartagnan
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 Vittorio test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dartagnan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vittorio climbed just as high around 1969, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vittorio's path sketches the road Dartagnan is walking now.
Dartagnan 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
Dartagnan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dartagnan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries a real historical figure and one of the best-known novels in the world.
- Dart and Tag work as short forms.
- It is unmistakable and unlikely to be shared in any classroom.
- The apostrophe is lost on American forms, changing the name's shape.
- The gn and the nasal vowel are not reproduced in English.
- It is strongly tied to one fictional character.
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What they receive
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Dartagnan
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dartagnans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Dartagnan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dartagnan in 2025?
- Dartagnan ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dartagnan?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Dartagnan — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dartagnan with classmates?
- Dartagnan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dartagnan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dartagnan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dartagnan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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