Dasan
Masculine
A made-up meaning is far more convincing when it names a specific people. Dasan is glossed on baby-name sites as Pomo for chief or leader. The Pomo languages are real, spoken in northern California, documented by linguists for over a century, and the word is not in any of them. The specificity is the tell, not the evidence.
How old is the name Dasan?
Dasan first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Dasan alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 600 people named Dasan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dasan most popular?
Dasan peaked in 2005, reaching #2567 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 5,676 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Dasan
Our reading is that Dasan illustrates a specific failure mode in name reference. A gloss reading Native American origin is vague enough that most readers discount it. A gloss reading Pomo, or Miwok, or Yurok, sounds researched, and that impression of research is doing all the persuasive work. Genuine Indigenous names exist in American records in numbers, and they are documentable: linguists have described these languages carefully, tribal nations publish their own materials, and a real word can be checked. That is exactly why the fabricated ones are worth naming as fabricated. Attaching a nation's name to an invented word is not a neutral act; it puts words in the mouths of communities that have spent a century getting their languages written down accurately. The honest account of Dasan is that it is an American coinage of the 2000s and a good-sounding one.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The circulating gloss, Pomo for chief or leader, is not supported. Pomoan is a family of seven distinct languages, several of them mutually unintelligible, recorded in grammars and dictionaries from the early twentieth century onward. None contains this word with this sense. The American name, peaking in 2005, is far more likely a coinage on the Da- prefix with the -san ending, alongside Dason, Dasean and Daysen.
Pronouncing Dasan
DAY-sun
Two syllables, stress on the first. DAH-sahn, with both vowels open and the stress at the end, is also used and is the reading implied by the claimed Indigenous origin. Both circulate.
Nicknames for Dasan
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
- 1975
- Most boys named
- 200543 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2567reached in 2005
- Change vs 2024
- +12.5%9 in 2025, from 8
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.
Dasans among us
people named Dasan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Dasan
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 Bashir test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dasan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bashir climbed just as high around 1979, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bashir's path sketches the road Dasan is walking now.
Dasan 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
Dasan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dasan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, balanced and easy to say.
- The sound sits comfortably beside Mason, Jayson and Dawson.
- It offers several natural short forms.
- The meaning attached to it online is not supported by any source.
- Two pronunciations circulate.
- Dason, Daysen and Dasean are competing spellings.
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What they receive
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Dasan
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dasans 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 Dasan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dasan in 2025?
- Dasan ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dasan?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Dasan — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dasan with classmates?
- Dasan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dasan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Danial#8243 · Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dasan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dasan and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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