Dillen
Masculine · “sea”
Dillen is given to both — 691 boys and 56 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Dillen writes a Welsh name using the letters an English reader would reach for, and the record holds it almost entirely for sons. The Greek word it accidentally opens contains a picture that nobody visualizes any more.
How old is the name Dillen?
Dillen first appears in US birth records in 1991 — 34 years ago. The typical Dillen alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 700 people named Dillen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dillen most popular?
Dillen peaked in 1992, reaching #2046 nationally. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Dillen
A dilemma has horns because Greek and Latin rhetoricians pictured it as an animal. The word itself is two Greek pieces meaning two premises — a form of argument in which your opponent is offered a choice between two propositions and both of them destroy his case. The teachers who explained it compared it to being charged by a bull: dodge the left horn and the right one gets you. Latin writers kept the image, medieval logicians kept it, and English inherited the whole thing intact, so that a speaker today says caught on the horns of a dilemma without any sense that there was ever an animal involved. The standard reply to the trap was to grasp one horn — to accept one branch and argue it through — or to find a third option and escape between them.
Meaningscholars disagree
sea, or son of the wave
The Welsh name is read as a word for the sea or a great flood, and the medieval tale about the figure who carries it supports that. Whether the name was built from that word or explained by it afterwards is exactly the kind of thing the Welsh material does not settle.
Pronouncing Dillen
DILL-un
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The Welsh original has a different first vowel and a sound English does not have, so the American reading is its own thing.
Nicknames for Dillen
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
- 1991
- Most boys named
- 200340 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2046reached in 1992
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%5 in 2023, from 5
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.
Dillen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dylan in Welsh — related form
Dillens among us
people named Dillen 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
Dillen 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
- Two syllables with front stress is the plainest shape English has.
- Both halves detach as short forms and sound unrelated.
- The spelling is phonetic by English rules and needs no explanation.
- Dylan and Dillon are both far commoner and will be written for it.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- The Welsh name's own derivation is contested, so the meaning comes with a qualification.
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What they receive
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Dillen
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Dillens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Dillen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dillen in 2025?
- Dillen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Dillen with classmates?
- Dillen 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 Dillen? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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