Dillon
Masculine · “Either 'sea”
Dillon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 65,225 boys against 1,045 girls since 1880. See Dillon as a girl name
Dillon reaches English by two roads that happen to meet at the same six letters: an old Irish family name, and the Welsh Dylan respelled the way English speakers hear it. It is two beats with the weight on the first, DIL-un, and nothing in it hides — every letter is doing the job it looks like it is doing.
How old is the name Dillon?
Dillon first appears in US birth records in 1892 — 133 years ago. The typical Dillon alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 63,000 people named Dillon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dillon most popular?
Dillon peaked in 1992, reaching #73 nationally. Today it ranks #929, 856 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Dillon appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Dylan ail Don to Dillon
The story of Dillon
The Irish surname came first into English use, carried by Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland from the twelfth century onward and later absorbing the native Ó Duilleáin. Surnames crossed into first-name territory in America early, which is how Dillon appears in US records well before the Welsh given name became fashionable. Then in the twentieth century Dylan spread out of Wales into general English use, and Dillon picked up a second stream of parents spelling it the way it sounds. The two currents have run together ever since, which is why the same spelling can be an Irish family name honored, or Dylan with the vowel changed.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either 'sea, son of the wave' (through Welsh Dylan) or a surname of Anglo-Norman-Irish descent
Two separate lines end at this spelling. Through Welsh Dylan, the name belongs to Dylan ail Don of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, a figure of the sea, with the name usually read as containing Welsh 'dy-' plus 'llanw', tide or flow. Through Ireland, Dillon is a surname: partly from Anglo-Norman families settled in Ireland after the twelfth century, partly an anglicization of Ó Duilleáin. Neither reading cancels the other; which one a given family means depends on the family.
How the name formed
- Dylan ail Don
- Dylan
- Dillon
Related forms: Dylan · Diolún · Dylan · Dilan · Dillan
Pronouncing Dillon
DIL-un
Stress on the first syllable. The second vowel is a light schwa, so Dillon and Dylan sound identical in ordinary American speech — the difference lives entirely on paper.
Nicknames for Dillon
High
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
- 1892
- Most boys named
- 19925,062 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #73reached in 1992
- Change vs 2023
- −24.7%253 in 2025, from 336
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.
Dillon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dylan in Welsh — spelling variant
- Diolún in Irish — related form
- Dylan in French — same name
- Dilan in Spanish — spelling variant
- Dillan in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Dillons among us
people named Dillon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 6,751 born in 2025 was named Dillon
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 Leon test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dillon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Leon climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Leon's path sketches the road Dillon is walking now.
Dillon is coming down from a big peak (#73 in 1992). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Dillon is headed
Dillon is easing off slowly — about 16% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Dillon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dillon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads exactly as it is spoken in English: two syllables, first-syllable stress, no silent letters and no vowel a stranger has to guess at.
- Has been on US records for well over a century, so it is familiar to every generation rather than newly minted.
- Carries two real traditions at once — an Irish family name and Welsh Dylan — so it can honor either side of a family.
- Short forms Dill and D exist and are ready to use, but the full name is short enough that nobody is forced into one.
- The Dylan family of spellings is in use across English-, French- and Spanish-speaking countries, so it crosses borders intact.
- Dylan is the better-known spelling by a wide margin. Expect to spell this one out at every appointment, and expect a fair number of forms and cards to come back with an 'a' in the middle.
- Its strongest years are recent enough that most people carrying the name are adults now, so for a while it may register as a grown man's name rather than a baby's.
- Dillon is still a working surname, which means it can read as a last name on a class list or a form — usually harmless, occasionally worth a clarifying word.
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What they receive
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Dillon
Masculine · #929 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dillons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 63,000 people named Dillon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dillon in 2025?
- Dillon ranks #929 among US boy names in 2025, with 253 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dillon?
- About 1 in every 6,751 US boys born in 2025 was named Dillon — 253 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dillon with classmates?
- Dillon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dillon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Halo#929 · Agastya#929 · Heath#929 · Isa#929 · Caius#927 · Darian#927 · Kiaan#924 · Judson#934
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dillon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dillon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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