Dyllan
Masculine · “sea”
Dyllan is given to both — 3,302 boys and 500 girls since 1880. See Dyllan as a girl nameSee other names given to both
In the Welsh tales, Dylan is named and immediately makes for the sea. The moment the name is spoken he takes to the water and swims as well as any fish in it, and the text says so plainly and moves on. It is one of the shortest and strangest entries in the Mabinogi.
How old is the name Dyllan?
Dyllan first appears in US birth records in 1986 — 39 years ago. The typical Dyllan alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 3,200 people named Dyllan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dyllan most popular?
Dyllan peaked in 1992, reaching #808 nationally. Today it ranks #7194, 6,386 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Dylan to Dyllan
The story of Dyllan
The story is a few lines long. A woman is required to step over a wand to prove something; two boys are born; one is taken away and the other, on being christened Dylan, goes straight into the sea. He is later killed by his own uncle, which the text also reports without elaboration. The name was almost unused for centuries and then a Welsh family picked it out of the tales for a son born in 1914, and his poems and his voice made it internationally known. The double l is worth a note. Welsh spells the name with one l; the doubled version looks Welsh to English eyes precisely because Welsh has a famous ll, but that sound is not in this name at all.
Meaning
sea, ocean
The Welsh tale glosses the name itself: Dylan is connected with a word for the sea or a great flow. That is unusually good evidence, because it is the source text explaining its own name rather than a later reconstruction. The doubled l in this spelling is English and does not represent the Welsh sound.
How the name formed
- Dylan
- Dyllan
Related forms: Dylan
Pronouncing Dyllan
DIL-un
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Welsh is closer to DUL-an, with the first vowel a sound English does not have. The doubled l changes nothing you can hear.
Nicknames for Dyllan
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
- 1986
- Most boys named
- 1999181 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #808reached in 1992
- Change vs 2024
- −8.3%11 in 2025, from 12
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.
Dyllan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dylan in Welsh — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Dyllans among us
people named Dyllan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was named Dyllan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Dyllan
- #7194
- Dyllan on the 2025 chart
- #40
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Dyllan went to 11 boys in 2025, but Dylan and Dilan are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 6,562, which makes it the 40th most-given boys’ name of the year — 7,154 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 boy in 260 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 155,280 for Dyllan 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 Deane test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Dyllan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Deane climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Deane's path sketches the road Dyllan is walking now.
Dyllan 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
Dyllan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Dyllan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The source text explains the meaning itself, which almost no ancient name can offer.
- Two syllables that everyone reads correctly on sight.
- It serves either child, and the records show both.
- Dylan with one l is the correct Welsh spelling and this one will be corrected for life.
- The doubled l suggests a Welsh sound the name does not contain.
- It leans to boys without settling, so a form will guess and will sometimes be wrong.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Dyllan
Masculine · #7194 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Dyllans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,200 people named Dyllan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Dyllan?
- Dyllan is one of 3 recorded spellings. Dylan is the more common one — 6,208 births in 2025 against 11 for Dyllan.
- How popular is the name Dyllan in 2025?
- Dyllan ranks #7194 among US boy names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Dyllan?
- About 1 in every 155,280 US boys born in 2025 was named Dyllan — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Dyllan with classmates?
- Dyllan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Dyllan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Junius#7194 · Orie#7194 · Shade#7194 · Chesley#7194 · Joesph#7194 · Lofton#7194 · Macon#7194 · Benjiman#7194
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dyllan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Dyllan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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