Dickson
Masculine · “Son of Dick”
Dickson is an English and Scottish surname, 'son of Dick', given as a first name in the twentieth century. Two Dicksons made things everyone has used: the first American motion-picture camera, and the adhesive bandage.
How old is the name Dickson?
Dickson first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Dickson alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 400 people named Dickson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dickson most popular?
Dickson peaked in 1946, reaching #2143 nationally. See the whole 1946 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Richard to Dickson
The story of Dickson
In Thomas Edison's laboratory in New Jersey, the engineer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson did most of the work of building the Kinetograph camera and the Kinetoscope viewer around 1891, though the patents and the fame went to Edison. In 1920 Earle Dickson, a cotton buyer at Johnson & Johnson, stuck squares of gauze onto strips of surgical tape so that his wife, who kept cutting and burning herself in the kitchen, could bandage herself; the company made them the Band-Aid. Dickson as a first name is a surname put to use.
Meaning
Son of Dick, a pet form of Richard
Dick was a medieval rhyming pet form of Richard, 'strong ruler'.
How the name formed
- Richard
- Dick
- Dickson
Related forms: Dixon
Pronouncing Dickson
DIK-sun
Two syllables with the stress on the first.
Nicknames for Dickson
Limited
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 195714 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2143reached in 1946
- Change vs 2015
- −44.4%5 in 2023, 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.
Dickson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dixon in English — spelling variant
Dicksons among us
people named Dickson 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
Dickson 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
- A real surname with a clear meaning.
- Carries two inventive bearers.
- Rare as a first name.
- Its first syllable is slang that children will notice.
- People will write Dixon.
- As a surname-first name it may be taken for a last name.
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Dickson
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Dicksons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Dickson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dickson in 2025?
- Dickson is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Dickson with classmates?
- Dickson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
David#35 · Daniel#22 · Donald#690 · Dennis#707 · Douglas#807 · Dylan#41 · Danny#628 · Dale#1409
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dickson? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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