Dallas
A name of unconfirmed origin, possibly related to a Scottish valley.
Name Census estimates that about 69,100 living Americans carry the first name Dallas. It sits at #243 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 81.8% of registrations being male. The average person named Dallas today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dallas births was 2015 (1,971 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dallas. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Dallas with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
69K
~ 1 in 4,960 Americans
Peak year
2015
1,971 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#243
Tracked since 1880
Census
Dallas in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 53,587 people with the first name Dallas, which placed it at #854 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#854
National first-name rank
People counted
54K
53,587 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
17.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
69.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dallas
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dallas is White at 69.6%. The next largest groups are Black (15.7%) and Hispanic (7.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Dallas described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Dallas at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White69.6% · 37,290
- Black or African American15.7% · 8,402
- Hispanic or Latino7.1% · 3,792
- Two or more races5.4% · 2,871
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 774
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 458
Gender
Gender distribution for Dallas
Dallas leans heavily male at 81.8% of total registrations, but 15,466 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Dallas as a male name
- Ranked #243 in 2024
- 1,448 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,448 births)
Dallas as a female name
- Ranked #657 in 2024
- 444 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (551 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dallas leans strongly male. 43,204 people counted with this name were male (80.6%), compared with 10,378 female bearers (19.4%).
Popularity
Dallas: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dallas from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 16,260 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Dallas remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dallas by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Dallas during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Dallas' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. Texas, California, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Dallas, while Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,523 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dallas
The name Dallas has an enigmatic and elusive origin, with no definitive consensus among scholars on its roots. Some linguists trace its etymology to the Gaelic word "dail," meaning "meadow" or "field," while others point to the Old English "dal," signifying a valley or dale. Others still suggest a potential connection to the ancient Greek "dāllō," meaning "to warm" or "to heat."
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Dallas is found in the Domesday Book, a medieval census commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. This document mentions a landowner named "Dalas" residing in Lincolnshire, England. However, the precise meaning and origin of this name remain shrouded in mystery.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Dallas. One such figure is Dallas Winslow (1837-1919), an American politician and soldier who served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Another individual of note is Dallas Donnell (1915-1998), an American football player and coach who played for the Detroit Lions and later coached at the collegiate level.
In the realm of literature, Dallas McCord Reynolds (1917-1999) was an American science fiction author known for his contributions to the genre, particularly his works exploring themes of time travel and parallel universes. Dallas Willard (1935-2013), on the other hand, was a renowned American philosopher and author who made significant contributions to the field of Christian philosophy and spiritual formation.
Lastly, Dallas Green (born 1934) is a former professional baseball player and manager who played for the Philadelphia Phillies and later managed several teams, including the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.
While the name Dallas has an intriguing and enigmatic history, its precise origins remain a subject of ongoing scholarly debate and speculation, with various theories and interpretations emerging from different linguistic and cultural perspectives.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Dallas
People
Dallas + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dallas as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Dallas: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dallas?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 69,100 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dallas going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,960 US residents.
Is Dallas a common name?
We classify Dallas as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 85,179 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dallas most popular?
The single biggest year for Dallas was 2015, when 1,971 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dallas is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dallas in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 53,587 people with the name Dallas, or 17.74 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #854 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Dallas in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Dallas?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dallas leans strongly male. 43,204 people counted with this name were male (80.6%), compared with 10,378 female bearers (19.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Dallas?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dallas is White at 69.6%. The next largest groups are Black (15.7%) and Hispanic (7.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Dallas most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dallas in the 2020 Census, accounting for 69.6% (37,290 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Dallas in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dallas a male name?
Yes, 81.8% of people registered as Dallas in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Dallas still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dallas in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Dallas can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Dallas?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Dallas at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.