Dena
Feminine · “judged”
Dena is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 32,479 girls against 56 boys since 1880.
Dena has two plausible parents and no way to tell them apart: the Hebrew Dinah, a named daughter in Genesis, and the English surname Dean, from the word for a valley.
How old is the name Dena?
Dena was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Dena alive today was born around 1969, making them about 56 years old. About 27,000 people named Dena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dena most popular?
Dena peaked in 1970, reaching #208 nationally. Today it ranks #4546, 4,338 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From din to Dena
The story of Dena
Dinah appears in Genesis as the daughter of Jacob and Leah, and her story is one of the more troubling in the book; the name was nonetheless in steady Protestant use from the Reformation. Separately, Dean was a common English surname that American families used as a given name, and feminines were built on it. Dena appears in American registers in real numbers from the 1940s and peaked in the early 1960s.
Meaningscholars disagree
judged, vindicated
Read as a spelling of Dinah, the meaning is the Hebrew din, 'judgment' — 'she is judged' or 'vindicated'. Read as a feminine of Dean, it is the Old English denu, 'valley', or the ecclesiastical title from the Latin decanus, 'chief of ten'. The two are unrelated and both were in American use.
How the name formed
- din
- Dinah
- Dena
Related forms: Dina · Deana · Dina
Pronouncing Dena
DEE-nuh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some families say DAY-nuh instead, which brings it closer to Dana; both are current.
Nicknames for Dena
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19691,264 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #208reached in 1970
- Change vs 2022
- −14.3%30 in 2025, from 35
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.
Dena in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dina in Hebrew — spelling variant
- Deana in English — spelling variant
- Dina in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey.
Denas among us
people named Dena are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 53,576 born in 2025 was named Dena
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dena
- #4546
- Dena on the 2025 chart
- #904
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dena went to 30 girls in 2025, but Deena is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 56, which makes it the 904th most-given girls’ name of the year — 3,642 places above the chart.
- Dena30
- Deena26
About 1 girl in 28,701 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 53,576 for Dena itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Elma test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dena's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elma climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elma's path sketches the road Dena is walking now.
Dena 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
Where Dena is headed
Dena should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Dena beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dena in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two quite different traditions stand behind it, one Hebrew and one English.
- Two clean syllables and no hard consonants at all.
- Dee is available as a short form with an independent history.
- Two pronunciations of the first vowel are current.
- The origin is genuinely split, so the name cannot promise a single meaning.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Dena
Feminine · #4546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Denas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 27,000 people named Dena are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dena?
- Dena is the most-used spelling in US records — 30 of the 56 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Deena.
- How popular is the name Dena in 2025?
- Dena ranks #4546 among US girl names in 2025, with 30 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dena?
- About 1 in every 53,576 US girls born in 2025 was named Dena — 30 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dena with classmates?
- Dena will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dena
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amie#4546 · Rashell#4546 · Renatta#4546 · Raisa#4546 · Amena#4546 · Aryn#4546 · Nadiya#4546 · Jeanne#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dena? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dena and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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