Dow
Masculine
Dow is three letters and two entirely separate kinds of fame. To anyone who has read a newspaper it is a stock market average. To Americans of the nineteenth century it was a preacher — a wild-haired, half-mad itinerant who could fill a field, and who was so widely admired that families named sons after him by the thousand. The name in the record is almost certainly his.
How old is the name Dow?
Dow was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Dow alive today was born around 1939, making them about 86 years old. About 400 people named Dow are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dow most popular?
Dow peaked in 1893, reaching #650 nationally. See the whole 1893 chart.
Where it comes from
From several unrelated surnames converge on one spelling to Dow
The story of Dow
Lorenzo Dow was the most traveled preacher of his generation and possibly the most recognizable man in rural America. He preached without license or salary, announced meetings a year in advance and turned up on the day, crossed the Atlantic to bring camp meetings to England, and looked so alarming — long hair, ragged clothes, a habit of interrupting himself — that his nickname was Crazy Dow. His journal went through dozens of editions and was said to be in more American households than any book except the Bible. The number of boys christened Lorenzo Dow in the decades after his death is the clearest measure of what he meant, and it is a large number.
Meaningscholars disagree
a surname of several unrelated origins
Dow is a surname before it is a first name, and it has arrived from more than one direction: a Scottish and Irish route from a Gaelic word for black, an English route from a pet form of David, and a Dutch and German one from other sources entirely. A family carrying it cannot generally say which. What can be said is that when Dow appears as a given name in American records, it is nearly always a surname moved to the front — and in that period, moving a surname to the front usually meant honoring somebody who carried it.
How the name formed
- several unrelated surnames converge on one spelling
- an itinerant preacher makes the name famous in America
- boys christened Lorenzo Dow through the nineteenth century
- Dow used alone as a given name from the 1880s
- a stock market average takes the word in 1896
Related forms: Dubh · Dowe
Pronouncing Dow
DOW
One syllable, rhyming with now, as in the market average. A minority say it to rhyme with know, particularly where the surname came down through Scots families.
Nicknames for Dow
Limited
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 192722 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #650reached in 1893
- Change vs 2003
- 0.0%5 in 2015, 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.
Dow in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dubh in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Dowe in English — spelling variant
Dows among us
people named Dow 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
Dow 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
- Three letters and one syllable — about as economical as an English name can be.
- It works as a first name or a middle name, and it carries family history well.
- It is genuinely rare without being strange, which very short names often are not.
- The financial association is immediate and total for most adults, and it will never not be there.
- One syllable gives nothing to shorten and nothing to lengthen.
- The two pronunciations are both defensible and he will hear both.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Dow
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Dows are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Dow are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dow in 2025?
- Dow is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Dow with classmates?
- Dow 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 Dow? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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