Dante
A masculine name of Italian origin meaning "enduring" or "steadfast".
Name Census estimates that about 47,952 living Americans carry the first name Dante. It sits at #322 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.1% of registrations). The average person named Dante today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dante births was 1998 (1,694 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dante. 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 Dante with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Dante is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 466 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
48K
~ 1 in 7,148 Americans
Peak year
1998
1,694 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#322
Tracked since 1908
Census
Dante in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 40,068 people with the first name Dante, which placed it at #1,049 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
#1,049
National first-name rank
People counted
40K
40,068 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
13.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
30.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dante
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dante is White at 30.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (28.9%) and Black (26.5%). 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 Dante 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 Dante at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White30.4% · 12,198
- Hispanic or Latino28.9% · 11,565
- Black or African American26.5% · 10,637
- Two or more races8.4% · 3,374
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.8% · 1,917
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 377
Gender
Gender distribution for Dante
Out of the 50,936 babies given the name Dante since 1880, 99.1% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Dante as a male name
- Ranked #322 in 2024
- 1,067 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1998 (1,670 births)
Dante as a female name
- Ranked #16,469 in 2017
- 5 female births in 2017
- Peak: 1998 (24 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dante appears almost entirely male. Of the 40,067 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Dante: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dante from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 12,529 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Dante remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dante 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 Dante during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Dantes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Dante, while Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 929 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dante
The name Dante originated in the Italian Renaissance period and derives from the Italian short form of the Latin name Durans, meaning "enduring" or "lasting." The name's roots can be traced back to the Late Latin name Durant, which itself comes from the Latin word durans, meaning "enduring" or "lasting."
The name Dante first gained widespread recognition and popularity due to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), widely considered the father of the Italian language and one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. His epic poem, the Divine Comedy, is regarded as one of the greatest works of world literature and has had a profound influence on Western culture.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Dante can be found in the 14th century, when it was mentioned in Dante Alighieri's own writings. The name gained further prominence during the Italian Renaissance, when it was associated with humanist scholars and artists.
Throughout history, several notable figures have borne the name Dante. These include the Italian painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the American novelist Dante Alighieri Barca (1854-1924), who wrote under the pen name Victor Seaside.
Another famous bearer of the name was the Italian composer Dante Ferretti (1908-1982), who composed several operas and ballets. The name Dante has also been associated with figures in the world of science, such as the Italian physicist Dante Bini (1928-2017), known for his contributions to the study of gravitational waves.
In the realm of politics, the name Dante has been borne by figures such as the Italian politician Dante Capello (1883-1957), who served as Prime Minister of Italy in the 1920s, and the American politician Dante Fascell (1917-1998), a long-serving member of the United States House of Representatives from Florida.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Dante
People
Dante + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dante 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
Dante: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dante?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 47,952 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dante 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 7,148 US residents.
Is Dante a common name?
We classify Dante as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 50,936 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dante most popular?
The single biggest year for Dante was 1998, when 1,694 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dante is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dante in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 40,068 people with the name Dante, or 13.27 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,049 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 Dante 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 Dante?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dante appears almost entirely male. Of the 40,067 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Dante?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dante is White at 30.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (28.9%) and Black (26.5%). 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 Dante most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dante in the 2020 Census, accounting for 30.4% (12,198 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 Dante in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dante a male name?
Yes, 99.1% of people registered as Dante 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 Dante still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dante 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 Dante 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 people have the name Dante?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.