Dennise
Feminine · “of Dionysus”
Dennise is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 3,488 girls against 83 boys since 1880.
The first bishop of Paris was beheaded on the hill north of the city, and the story says he picked his head up and walked several miles with it, preaching the whole way. The hill is Montmartre, the mount of the martyr, and the church built where he supposedly stopped is where the kings of France are buried.
How old is the name Dennise?
Dennise first appears in US birth records in 1935 — 90 years ago. The typical Dennise alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 3,200 people named Dennise are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dennise most popular?
Dennise peaked in 1952, reaching #1316 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 10,616 places below that high. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Dionysius to Dennise
The story of Dennise
Dionysius was an ordinary Greek name and then an ordinary Christian one, carried by so many bishops and martyrs that it became unremarkable. The Paris one made it French. He was executed in the third century, the story of the walking corpse attached to him in the Middle Ages, and he became the patron saint of France; his abbey at Saint-Denis holds almost every French monarch. Saints who carry their own heads are a recognized type in medieval art, and he is the best known of them. The feminine Denise is a French formation and reached English and Spanish-speaking families in the twentieth century, where the doubled n and the -ise ending were both added by American spelling.
Meaning
of Dionysus
Through French Denis from Latin Dionysius, meaning belonging to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and theater. Denise is the French feminine. So a name carried by bishops and saints for two thousand years is, underneath, an adjective about a god of intoxication.
How the name formed
- Dionysius
- Denis
- Denise
- Dennise
Related forms: Denise · Dionisia · Dionysia
Pronouncing Dennise
duh-NEECE
Two syllables, stress on the second, ending in a clean s. deh-NEE-seh, with three, is used in Spanish-speaking families where the final e is sounded.
Nicknames for Dennise
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
- 1935
- Most girls named
- 199176 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1316reached in 1952
- Change vs 2023
- −50.0%7 in 2025, from 14
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.
Dennise in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Denise in French — same name
- Dionisia in Spanish — related form
- Dionysia in Greek — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Dennises among us
people named Dennise are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Dennise
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dennise
- #11932
- Dennise on the 2025 chart
- #830
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dennise went to 7 girls in 2025, but Denise is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 130, which makes it the 830th most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,102 places above the chart.
- Denise123
- Dennise7
About 1 girl in 12,364 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Dennise 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 Mitzie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dennise's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mitzie climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mitzie's path sketches the road Dennise is walking now.
Dennise 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
Dennise beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dennise in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Greek origin and a documented third-century bearer with a feast day.
- Three short forms, one of which serves either child.
- Two syllables and an unmistakable stress.
- Denise is the standard spelling and the second n will be dropped by almost everyone.
- English and Spanish speakers give it different numbers of syllables.
- 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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Dennise
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dennises are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,200 people named Dennise are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dennise?
- Dennise is one of 2 recorded spellings. Denise is the more common one — 123 births in 2025 against 7 for Dennise.
- How popular is the name Dennise in 2025?
- Dennise ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dennise?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Dennise — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dennise with classmates?
- Dennise will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dennise
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jovita#11932 · Dotty#11932 · Janett#11932 · Kiyoko#11932 · Ruthanna#11932 · Hedy#11932 · Olivea#11932 · Jeri#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dennise? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dennise and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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