Demetrius
Feminine · “devoted to Demeter”
Demetrius is given to both — 1,727 girls and 36,064 boys since 1880. See Demetrius as a boy nameSee other names given to both
A man with this name started a riot in Ephesus because his business was suffering. He made silver shrines of the local goddess, saw the trade falling off as a new religion spread, called a meeting of the other silversmiths and pointed out what it was costing them — and the city spent two hours in an uproar afterwards.
How old is the name Demetrius?
Demetrius first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Demetrius alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 1,600 people named Demetrius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Demetrius most popular?
Demetrius peaked in 1975, reaching #1326 nationally. See the whole 1975 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Demetrios to Demetrius
The story of Demetrius
English has the Latin form of this name rather than the Greek. The original ends in -os, as Greek names do; Latin regularly turned that ending into -us when it borrowed, and English inherited the Latin version along with almost every other classical name it uses. That is why the same figure is Demetrios in Greece and Demetrius in an English Bible, and why the two look like different names to anybody who has not been told. Almost every ancient Greek name an English speaker knows arrived wearing Roman clothes.
Meaning
devoted to Demeter
A Greek name built on the goddess's, of a kind that was extremely common — names declaring a person's dedication to a particular deity were ordinary rather than pious.
How the name formed
- Demetrios
- Demetrius
Related forms: Dimitrios · Dmitri · Demetrio
Pronouncing Demetrius
duh-MEE-tree-us
Four syllables with the stress on the second. Greek puts it in the same place, which makes the name unusually stable across the two.
Nicknames for Demetrius
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
- 1946
- Most girls named
- 197582 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1326reached in 1975
- Change vs 2001
- −33.3%6 in 2004, from 9
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.
Demetrius in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dimitrios in Greek — same name
- Dmitri in Russian — same name
- Demetrio in Italian — same name
Demetriuss among us
people named Demetrius 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
Demetrius 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
- It carries a genuinely ancient Greek name in the form English knows.
- It has short forms in more than one language.
- The rhythm is long and confident and the name carries well.
- It is long and most people will shorten it on first meeting.
- Its peak was recent enough to date the name to a decade.
- The record holds girls as well, and the girl is much the smaller side.
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Demetrius
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Demetriuss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Demetrius are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Demetrius in 2025?
- Demetrius is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Demetrius with classmates?
- Demetrius will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
Dorothy#421 · Donna#1962 · Deborah#862 · Debra#4460 · Diane#2607 · Doris#2895 · Denise#1673 · Danielle#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Demetrius? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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