Dierdre
Feminine
This name has no natural short form. Two syllables, both of them needed, no soft consonant to build on and no vowel that survives being cut: English gets as far as an initial and gives up, which is unusual for a name of any age at all.
How old is the name Dierdre?
Dierdre first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Dierdre alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 1,000 people named Dierdre are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dierdre most popular?
Dierdre peaked in 1961, reaching #1406 nationally. See the whole 1961 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Derdriu to Dierdre
Our story of Dierdre
Names that arrive attached to a famous story are read backwards ever afterwards. The story supplies a mood, the mood gets written down as a meaning, and within a generation or two the meaning is being quoted as though it came from a dictionary rather than from a plot summary. It happens most often with names out of legend, where there is no ordinary word to check against and nobody living who used the name in a sentence. The honest position is that the story is documented and the word is not, and a family choosing a name like this one is choosing a sound and an association rather than a definition.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The meaning is not known and every gloss offered for it is taken from the story rather than from the word. Sorrowful, raging and one who murmurs have all been proposed, and each of them describes the character in the legend rather than anything recoverable in the language. The name is older than the explanations.
How the name formed
- Derdriu
- Deirdre
- Dierdre
Related forms: Deirdre
Pronouncing Dierdre
DEER-druh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Two r sounds that close together are awkward in English, which is why so many speakers drop the first one and why the spelling without it is so common.
Nicknames for Dierdre
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
- 1941
- Most girls named
- 196461 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1406reached in 1961
- Change vs 2005
- −14.3%6 in 2009, from 7
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.
Dierdre in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Deirdre in Irish — same name
Dierdres among us
people named Dierdre 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
Dierdre 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
- The sound is distinctive and there is nothing else quite like it in English.
- It has a documented literary history running back to medieval manuscripts.
- Every sound in it is available to an English speaker.
- Deirdre is the standard spelling and this one transposes two of its letters.
- There is no short form, so the whole name gets used every time.
- There is no meaning to give a child who asks, only a story.
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Dierdre
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Dierdres are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Dierdre are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dierdre in 2025?
- Dierdre is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Dierdre with classmates?
- Dierdre will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
Dorothy#421 · Donna#1962 · Deborah#862 · Debra#4460 · Diane#2607 · Doris#2895 · Denise#1673 · Danielle#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dierdre? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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