Diallo
Masculine · “A Fula clan name”
Diallo is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 806 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
The Fula people spread across a dozen West African countries, and four clan names cover a great many of them: Diallo, Ba, Sow and Barry. They function as patronymic clan markers rather than family surnames, and a Diallo in Guinea and one in Senegal share the name without sharing a family.
How old is the name Diallo?
Diallo first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Diallo alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 800 people named Diallo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Diallo most popular?
Diallo peaked in 1972, reaching #917 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 6,762 places below that high. See the whole 1972 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Diallo
Fula society is organized into these named groups, and the name travels with the people rather than with a locality — Fulani communities are spread across Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, and the same four names recur throughout, spelled according to whether the country's official language is French or English: Diallo in francophone countries, Jallow in The Gambia, Jalloh in Sierra Leone. The name entered American records with West African immigration from the 1970s onward and became more widely known in New York in 1999. The American figures peak in 1972.
Meaningnot established
A Fula clan name, of unrecovered further sense
Diallo, sometimes written Jallo or Jallow, is one of the four principal Fula clan names, alongside Ba or Bah, Sow and Barry or Balde. Their further etymology is not established, and traditional explanations link them to occupations or to the founding lineages. The Fula are one of the most widely dispersed peoples in Africa, present from Senegal to Sudan.
Pronouncing Diallo
dee-AH-loh
Three syllables, stress on the second, with the di said as a single sound closer to j in Fula. The French spelling uses di for that consonant; English spellings write j.
Nicknames for Diallo
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
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 197276 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #917reached in 1972
- Change vs 2024
- −16.7%10 in 2025, from 12
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.
Diallo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jallo in Fula — same name
- Jallow in English — spelling variant
- Jalloh in English — spelling variant
Diallos among us
people named Diallo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Diallo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Nevin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Diallo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nevin climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nevin's path sketches the road Diallo is walking now.
Diallo 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
Diallo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Diallo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a genuine clan name carried across a dozen countries.
- It is soft, three syllables and easy to approximate in English.
- Dia works as a short form.
- The further meaning of the clan name is not recoverable.
- It is far more often a surname than a given name.
- The spelling varies by which colonial language a country used.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Diallo
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Diallos 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 Diallo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Diallo in 2025?
- Diallo ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Diallo?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Diallo — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Diallo with classmates?
- Diallo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Diallo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Diallo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Diallo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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