Dominic
Masculine · “of the Lord”
Dominic is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 193,424 boys against 1,252 girls since 1880. See Dominic as a girl name
Dominic began as a Sunday name. Latin dies dominica, the Lord's day, gave Dominicus, and for centuries a child born on a Sunday was liable to receive it — a name that records a day of the week as much as a faith. It travels better than almost anything else in its class: Domingo in Spanish, Domenico in Italian, Dominik across central Europe, all of them the same word.
How old is the name Dominic?
Dominic first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Dominic alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 176,000 people named Dominic are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dominic most popular?
Dominic peaked in 2013, reaching #68 nationally. Today it ranks #106, 38 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Dominic appears on these lists:
- The sweet spot: familiar but not everywhere
- Three-syllable names with room to move
- Seven-letter names, ranked by real use
- Names far more common than their rank admits
- Saint names in modern use
- Italian names Americans adore
- all guides
Works in Italian families too:
Where it comes from
From dominus to Dominic
The story of Dominic
The name belongs to the medieval church before it belongs to anyone else. Dominic of Caleruega, a Castilian priest of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, founded the Order of Preachers, and his friars carried both the order and the name across Europe — which is why every Catholic language has a version of it and why the black-and-white habit is still called Dominican. The map kept it too: Columbus's brother founded Santo Domingo, and the republic that grew around it took the name of the city. English use runs alongside all of that, steady rather than fashionable, and in recent decades an Austrian tennis player named Dominic Thiem has carried it to a US Open title. The name has never needed a revival because it has never gone away.
Meaning
of the Lord; belonging to the Lord
Latin dominicus is a plain adjective from dominus, lord or master of the household. The Sunday connection is not a second meaning but the same one applied: dies dominica, the Lord's day. That puts Dominic in a small class of names that fix a day rather than a quality — Natalie for Christmas, Pascal for Easter, Dominic for Sunday. Nothing here is contested.
Cultural footprint
Dominic Thiem (b. 1993) — US Open tennis champion
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- dominus
- Dominicus
- Dominic
Related forms: Domingo · Domenico · Domingos · Dominique · Dominik · Domonkos
Pronouncing Dominic
DOM-uh-nick
Three syllables, stress at the front, the middle vowel reduced almost to nothing: DOM-uh-nick. Spanish and Italian move the weight and change the vowels but not the shape, so the name survives translation without becoming unrecognizable.
Nicknames for Dominic
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 20146,264 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #68reached in 2013
- Change vs 2022
- −8.7%3,277 in 2025, from 3,590
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.
Dominic in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Domingo in Spanish — same name
- Domenico in Italian — same name
- Domingos in Portuguese — same name
- Dominique in French — same name
- Dominik in Polish — same name
- Domonkos in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Dominics among us
people named Dominic are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 521 born in 2025 was named Dominic
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dominic
- #106
- Dominic on the 2025 chart
- #86
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dominic went to 3,277 boys in 2025, but Dominick and Dominik are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 3,963, which makes it the 86th most-given boys’ name of the year — 20 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 431 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 521 for Dominic 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 Tristan test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dominic's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tristan climbed just as high around 1996, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tristan's path sketches the road Dominic is walking now.
Dominic is coming down from a big peak (#68 in 2013). 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 Dominic is headed
Dominic should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Dominic beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dominic in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Every major European language already has this name, so it crosses a border without being translated or explained.
- Dom is a complete working name rather than a clipping that needs the long form standing behind it.
- It is said the way it is written, in any accent, and has been for eight centuries.
- The name has visible footholds outside naming fashion — an order of friars, a Caribbean republic, a capital city.
- Dominic and Dominick both look right, so the spelling will be asked for and then sometimes ignored anyway.
- The origin is unmistakably Catholic. For some families that is the point; for others it is a history they are not part of and would rather not imply.
- Dom carries other freight in English — dominant, dominate — and a child who tires of it has Nic waiting.
- This spelling is on record for girls, though so rarely that a girl named Dominic will be read as a boy on every form for life. Dominique is the same name without that friction.
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What they receive
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Dominic
Masculine · #106 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dominics are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 176,000 people named Dominic are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dominic?
- Dominic is the most-used spelling in US records — 3,277 of the 3,963 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Dominick and Dominik.
- How popular is the name Dominic in 2025?
- Dominic ranks #106 among US boy names in 2025, with 3,277 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dominic?
- About 1 in every 521 US boys born in 2025 was named Dominic — 3,277 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dominic with classmates?
- Dominic will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dominic
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vincent#107 · Amir#105 · Eli#104 · Xavier#108 · Colton#103 · Damian#109 · Parker#102 · Easton#110
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dominic? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dominic and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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