Dione
Masculine · “of Zeus”
Dione is given to both — 573 boys and 2,373 girls since 1880. See Dione as a girl nameSee other names given to both
There is a moon of Saturn called Dione, spotted in sixteen eighty-four by an astronomer who found four of them and named them after Louis the Fourteenth. The classical names came later, and this one belongs to a Titan who is the mother of Aphrodite in the older version of the story.
How old is the name Dione?
Dione first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Dione alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 500 people named Dione are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dione most popular?
Dione peaked in 1970, reaching #1939 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 8,756 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Dione
Giovanni Cassini found four moons of Saturn from the Paris Observatory and called them the Sidera Lodoicea, the stars of Louis, after his employer. That did not survive. A century and a half later the astronomer John Herschel proposed naming Saturn's moons after Titans, the siblings of Kronos, and Dione is one of the results — an ice moon with a system of bright cliffs across one side. The name itself is far older, belonging to a goddess whom Homer names as Aphrodite's mother and whom later writers largely wrote out. The American record shows it given to both sexes.
Meaningscholars disagree
of Zeus
The Greek name looks like a feminine formed on the name of Zeus, which would make it something like the goddess. The derivation is likely and not universally accepted.
Pronouncing Dione
dee-OH-nee
Three syllables with the weight in the middle in the classical reading. Many American families use two, dee-OHN, following Dion.
Nicknames for Dione
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
- 1965
- Most boys named
- 197021 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1939reached in 1970
- Change vs 2020
- 0.0%6 in 2025, from 6
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.
Dione in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dione in Greek — transliteration
Diones among us
people named Dione are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Dione
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dione
- #10695
- Dione on the 2025 chart
- #917
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dione went to 6 boys in 2025, but Dionne is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 11, which makes it the 917th most-given boys’ name of the year — 9,778 places above the chart.
- Dione6
- Dionne5
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 284,679 for Dione itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Vickey test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dione's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vickey climbed just as high around 1952, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vickey's path sketches the road Dione is walking now.
Dione 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
Dione beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dione in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It carries a real classical figure and a real astronomical object.
- Every sound in it is manageable for an English speaker.
- It is genuinely uncommon while being entirely readable.
- The syllable count is genuinely unsettled between two and three.
- Dion and Dionne are close neighbors and will be written instead.
- The spelling is recorded for girls as well as boys in the United States.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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Dione
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Diones are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Dione are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dione?
- Dione is the most-used spelling in US records — 6 of the 11 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Dionne.
- How popular is the name Dione in 2025?
- Dione ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dione?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Dione — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dione with classmates?
- Dione will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dione
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dione? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dione and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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