Devine
Masculine · “descendant of Daimhin”
Devine is given to both — 835 boys and 784 girls since 1880. See Devine as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Devine looks like an English adjective and is an Irish surname. O Daimhin is an old Ulster family name built on a word for a fawn or a small ox, and English clerks wrote it as Devine — a spelling that happens to be one letter from divine. Its American peak on boys is 1992, and the coincidence is doing a good deal of the work.
How old is the name Devine?
Devine first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Devine alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 800 people named Devine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Devine most popular?
Devine peaked in 1992, reaching #2128 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 3,733 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Where it comes from
From damh to Devine
The story of Devine
The O Daimhin were a family of Tyrone and Fermanagh, recorded from the medieval period, and their name was anglicized as Devine, Divine and Devin by clerks working without Irish. Irish emigration carried it to America in very large numbers in the nineteenth century. Its promotion to a given name is modern and belongs to the general surname wave, but Devine has a particular advantage that most surname names lack: it is one letter from an English word of great weight, and that resemblance is almost certainly why it is used as a first name more often than comparable Irish surnames of the same frequency.
Meaningscholars disagree
descendant of Daimhin — a little deer or ox
The Irish surname O Daimhin is built on damh, which in Old and Middle Irish means an ox or a stag, with a diminutive ending — so a fawn or a young ox. That is the standard reading. English speakers hear divine instead, from Latin divinus, 'of a god', and many American bearers understand the name that way. Both are genuinely present: the descent is Irish, the association is Latin, and the spelling supports the second while the history supports the first.
How the name formed
- damh
- O Daimhin
- Devine
Related forms: O Daimhin · Devin · Divine
Pronouncing Devine
duh-VYNE
Two syllables, stress at the end, rhyming with wine — the same as the English word divine. The Irish original is closer to DEV-in, and the surname is said both ways in Ireland; in America the end-stressed version is much the more common.
Nicknames for Devine
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
- 1955
- Most boys named
- 199236 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2128reached in 1992
- Change vs 2024
- +15.4%15 in 2025, from 13
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.
Devine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- O Daimhin in Irish — related form
- Devin in English — related form
- Divine in English — spelling variant
Devines among us
people named Devine are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Devine
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Devine
- #5861
- Devine on the 2025 chart
- #907
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Devine went to 15 boys in 2025, but Devyne is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 21, which makes it the 907th most-given boys’ name of the year — 4,954 places above the chart.
- Devine15
- Devyne6
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 113,872 for Devine 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 Kali test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Devine's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kali climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kali's path sketches the road Devine is walking now.
Devine 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
Devine beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Devine in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Dev is a short form that is current and works in any register.
- The pronunciation is obvious to any English reader.
- It has a genuine medieval Irish ancestry underneath the English-looking spelling.
- It is heard as the word divine, which is a large claim to carry.
- Devine, Devin and Divine all circulate and are constantly confused.
- The Irish original is said quite differently from the American version.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Devine to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Devine? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Devine
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Devines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Devine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Devine?
- Devine is the most-used spelling in US records — 15 of the 21 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Devyne.
- How popular is the name Devine in 2025?
- Devine ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Devine?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Devine — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Devine with classmates?
- Devine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Devine
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Devine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Devine and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle