Delmas
Masculine · “of the farmstead”
This name has a date on it, and the date is a courtroom. It appears in American records in the years either side of the most sensationally reported trial the country had yet seen, and it peaks in the exact year the defense won. The man who won it was called Delmas.
How old is the name Delmas?
Delmas first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Delmas alive today was born around 1944, making them about 81 years old. About 1,000 people named Delmas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Delmas most popular?
Delmas peaked in 1907, reaching #559 nationally. See the whole 1907 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From del mas to Delmas
The story of Delmas
Delphin Delmas was a Californian lawyer with a reputation for theatrical closing arguments, and in the summer of 1907 he defended a wealthy man who had shot a famous architect in front of hundreds of witnesses on a New York rooftop. There was no dispute about what had happened. Delmas argued instead that his client had been temporarily deranged by his wife's account of what the dead man had done to her, gave the condition a name of his own invention, and got a hung jury. The trial was covered in extraordinary detail by every paper in the country, the lawyer's own name was in all of them, and American parents did what they have always done with names they read in the news.
Meaning
of the farmstead
A southern French surname, from the Occitan for a farmhouse or country holding with the preposition attached. It names where a family came from rather than what they did, which is the commonest kind of French surname there is.
How the name formed
- del mas
- Delmas
Related forms: Delmas · Delmàs
Pronouncing Delmas
DEL-mus
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The French would put the weight on the second and sound the final s; the American form does neither.
Nicknames for Delmas
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
- 1906
- Most boys named
- 194783 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #559reached in 1907
- Change vs 1994
- −37.5%5 in 2003, 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.
Delmas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Delmas in French — same name
- Delmàs in Occitan — same name
Delmass among us
people named Delmas 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
Delmas 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
- Del is a ready short form that sounds entirely current.
- The spelling is unambiguous and gives no trouble once seen.
- It is genuinely rare while being easy to say and to remember.
- The generation that used it is now very old and the name reads that way.
- Delma, Delmar and Delmus all sit nearby and cause confusion.
- The trial it came from was a scandal, which is an odd thing at the root of a name.
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Delmas
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Delmass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Delmas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Delmas in 2025?
- Delmas is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Delmas with classmates?
- Delmas 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 Delmas? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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