Darwin
Masculine · “dear friend”
Darwin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 26,347 boys against 89 girls since 1880.
Darwin began as an English surname built from two Old English words that were once ordinary: deor, dear, and wine, friend. It traveled from a family name to a first name on the shoulders of the nineteenth-century naturalist, and it has been given to boys in the United States without interruption ever since — never crowding a classroom, never disappearing either.
How old is the name Darwin?
Darwin first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Darwin alive today was born around 1961, making them about 64 years old. About 17,000 people named Darwin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Darwin most popular?
Darwin peaked in 1938, reaching #297 nationally. Today it ranks #960, 663 places below that high. See the whole 1938 chart.
Darwin appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Deorwine to Darwin
The story of Darwin
Deorwine was a given name in Anglo-Saxon England, and like many such names it faded as a personal name and hardened into a family name, worn down over centuries into Darwin. It stayed a surname until Charles Darwin, the naturalist who sailed on the Beagle and published On the Origin of Species in 1859, made it one of the best-known words in the English language — and English-speaking parents began putting it in front of the family name instead of behind it. The northern Australian city of Darwin carries his name too, given by the surveyors who charted its harbor. In the twentieth century the name took separate root in Spanish-speaking Latin America, where Darwin has been steadily given to boys for decades, and it arrived in the United States again through those families.
Meaning
dear friend
From the Old English personal name Deorwine — deor "dear, beloved" plus wine "friend" — which survived as a surname long after it stopped being used as a first name.
How the name formed
- Deorwine
- Derwin
- Darwinsurname
- Darwin
Related forms: Darwin · Deorwine · Derwin · Darwyn
Pronouncing Darwin
DAR-win
Two syllables, stress on the first. Spanish speakers say it much the same way, with a tapped r and the second syllable closer to "ween"; the spelling survives the crossing without change.
Nicknames for Darwin
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 1959397 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #297reached in 1938
- Change vs 2022
- +5.2%241 in 2025, from 229
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.
Darwin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Darwin in Spanish (Latin America) — same name
- Deorwine in Old English — related form
- Derwin in English — related form
- Darwyn in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Darwins among us
people named Darwin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,087 born in 2025 was named Darwin
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 Coy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Darwin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Coy climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Coy's path sketches the road Darwin is walking now.
Darwin 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 Darwin is headed
Darwin should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Darwin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Darwin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Almost no one needs it spelled out — the surname is known worldwide, so the letters arrive already familiar in English and Spanish alike.
- Pronounced the same way on both sides of the English–Spanish line, which suits a name with deep roots in Texas, California and Florida.
- A documented meaning, "dear friend", traceable to a real Old English name rather than a modern invention.
- An unbroken record in US births across well over a century, without ever becoming a crowd.
- The association with evolutionary theory is immediate and permanent. In much of the country that is simply a point of interest; in some communities and some family gatherings, it is a conversation the child will have more than once.
- Short forms are thin. Dar and Win exist but neither is widely established, so in practice most Darwins go by the full name.
- The name is strongly represented among older generations, so a boy today is more likely to share it with a grandfather's contemporary than with a classmate — pleasant for some families, worth knowing for all.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Darwin
Masculine · #960 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Darwins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 17,000 people named Darwin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Darwin in 2025?
- Darwin ranks #960 among US boy names in 2025, with 241 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Darwin?
- About 1 in every 7,087 US boys born in 2025 was named Darwin — 241 in all.
- Will my child share the name Darwin with classmates?
- Darwin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Darwin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Wallace#960 · Shimon#960 · Montgomery#960 · Aldo#960 · Damari#958 · Melvin#958 · Arian#965 · Felipe#955
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Darwin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Darwin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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