Deidre
Feminine
Deidre is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 14,673 girls against 11 boys since 1880.
Deirdre has two r's, and English does not like two r's in a short word. The same instinct that produces libary for library and Febuary for February takes the first r out of Deirdre. Deidre is that pronunciation written down and kept.
How old is the name Deidre?
Deidre first appears in US birth records in 1933 — 92 years ago. The typical Deidre alive today was born around 1970, making them about 55 years old. About 13,500 people named Deidre are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Deidre most popular?
Deidre peaked in 1963, reaching #413 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 10,504 places below that high. See the whole 1963 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Derdriu to Deidre
The story of Deidre
The story is one of the oldest in Irish: Deirdre is born to a prophecy that she will bring ruin, is raised apart to be the king's, runs to Scotland with Naoise instead, and is brought back by a promise the king does not keep. It survives in manuscripts centuries older than most European literature. For a long time it stayed inside the manuscripts. Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the writers of the Irish Literary Revival went looking for material that was Irish rather than English, and put Deirdre on the stage in Dublin within a few years of each other. Children began to be named for her, in Ireland first and then wherever Irish families had gone.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Old Irish name has no settled reading. Sorrowful is the one usually printed, and it comes from the story rather than from the word: she is called Deirdre of the Sorrows in the telling. A derivation from a verb meaning to murmur or chatter has also been proposed. Neither has been established, and the name is probably older than any explanation for it.
How the name formed
- Derdriu
- Deirdre
- Deidre
Related forms: Deirdre
Pronouncing Deidre
DEER-druh
Two syllables, stress on the first. DAIR-druh is the Irish saying and is heard here too. Deidre without the first r is often said DEE-druh, which is a third option the spelling encourages.
Nicknames for Deidre
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
- 1933
- Most girls named
- 1963541 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #413reached in 1963
- Change vs 2021
- +60.0%8 in 2025, from 5
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.
Deidre in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Deirdre in Irish — spelling variant
Deidres among us
people named Deidre are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Deidre
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 Freddie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Deidre's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Freddie climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Freddie's path sketches the road Deidre is walking now.
Deidre 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
Deidre beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Deidre in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One of the oldest continuously recorded names in western Europe.
- A story attached to it that can actually be read, in translations that are easy to find.
- Dee works at once and needs no explanation.
- Deirdre is the standard spelling and this one will be treated as a mistake rather than a choice.
- There are three pronunciations in real use and the spelling settles none of them.
- The story it comes from ends badly, and people who know it will mention that.
- The very few boys given this spelling will be read as girls on paper.
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What they receive
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Deidre
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Deidres are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 13,500 people named Deidre are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Deidre in 2025?
- Deidre ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Deidre?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Deidre — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Deidre with classmates?
- Deidre will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Deidre
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Deidre? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Deidre and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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