De
Masculine
De is given to both — 681 boys and 641 girls since 1880. See De as a girl nameSee other names given to both
De is two letters, recorded for daughters and sons in almost equal numbers, and it is one of the most interesting entries in the whole dataset — because the piece it consists of spent decades as the front half of hundreds of other names before somebody registered it alone.
How old is the name De?
De first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical De alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 600 people named De are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name De most popular?
De peaked in 1992, reaching #1804 nationally. See the whole 1992 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of De
A prefix that ends up as a name by itself has completed a particular journey. It starts attached to something — in this case as the front of a very large family of American names — where it carries at most an association and certainly no meaning. It gets used so widely that it becomes a recognizable piece rather than part of any one name. And then a family writes it on a certificate alone, which is only possible once it has stopped being felt as the beginning of anything. The same thing happened to endings: Lynn and Ella and Etta were all suffixes before they were names. It is the clearest evidence a dataset can give that a piece of a name has been fully detached, because nobody registers half a word.
Meaningnot established
Not established
There is nothing to report. It may be an initial, a clipping of any of a hundred longer names, or the prefix element used on its own. All three occur, and two letters carry no information about which.
Pronouncing De
DEE
One syllable. Two letters give a reader almost nothing to go on, and a small number of bearers say it DAY instead.
Nicknames for De
Limited
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 199246 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1804reached in 1992
- Change vs 2007
- 0.0%7 in 2011, from 7
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.
Des among us
people named De are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
De sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Two letters fit any field on any form.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- It is impossible to misspell once heard.
- Some databases reject names this short outright.
- It will be read as an initial or an abbreviation rather than as a name.
- There is no meaning and no documented origin, so both questions have short answers.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put De to the vote.
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What they receive
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De
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Des 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 De are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name De in 2025?
- De is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name De with classmates?
- De will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
David#35 · Daniel#22 · Donald#690 · Dennis#707 · Douglas#807 · Dylan#41 · Danny#628 · Dale#1409
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles De? See the current top 100.
Choosing between De and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
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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