Daphne
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "laurel" or "laurel tree".
Name Census estimates that about 36,293 living Americans carry the first name Daphne. It sits at #192 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Daphne today is around 33 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Daphne births was 2024 (1,564 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Daphne. 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 Daphne with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
36K
~ 1 in 9,444 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,564 babies that year
Average age
33
years old
1962 SSA rank
#192
Tracked since 1886
Census
Daphne in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 33,598 people with the first name Daphne, which placed it at #1,173 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
#1,173
National first-name rank
People counted
34K
33,598 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
11.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Daphne
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Daphne is White at 53.0%. The next largest groups are Black (22.8%) and Hispanic (13.9%). 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 Daphne 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 Daphne at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.0% · 17,799
- Black or African American22.8% · 7,652
- Hispanic or Latino13.9% · 4,664
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.4% · 1,809
- Two or more races4.3% · 1,455
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 219
Gender
Gender distribution for Daphne
Out of the 42,441 babies given the name Daphne since 1880, 100.0% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Daphne as a male name
- Ranked #3,376 in 1962
- 7 male births in 1962
- Peak: 1962 (7 births)
Daphne as a female name
- Ranked #192 in 2024
- 1,564 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,564 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Daphne appears almost entirely female. Of the 33,602 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Daphne: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Daphne 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 7,768 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Daphne remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Daphne 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 Daphne during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Daphnes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Daphne, while Vermont, Rhode Island, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 739 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Daphne
The name Daphne is derived from the ancient Greek word daphne, meaning "laurel tree". It originated in Greek mythology, where Daphne was a beautiful naiad who transformed into a laurel tree to escape the pursuit of the god Apollo. The story is recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, written in the 1st century AD.
In ancient Greece, the laurel tree was considered sacred and symbols of victory were fashioned from its branches and leaves. The name Daphne was a popular choice among the Greeks, who associated it with concepts of beauty, purity, and triumph. It gradually spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean world as the Greeks established colonies and cultural influence.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Daphne was a Sicilian Greek woman who lived in the 5th century BC. She was a priestess of the goddess Demeter and her name is inscribed on a marble tablet discovered in Syracuse, Sicily. Another early bearer was Daphne of Ephesus, a Greek poet who lived in the 3rd century BC and authored works on agriculture and beekeeping.
During the Middle Ages, the name fell out of common use in Europe but experienced a revival in the Renaissance era, when interest in classical Greek and Roman culture resurged. Daphne du Maurier, the renowned English author best known for her novels "Rebecca" and "The Birds", was born in 1907 and helped popularize the name in the 20th century.
Other notable individuals named Daphne include Daphne Oram (1925-2003), a pioneering British electronic music composer, and Daphne Sheldrick (1934-2018), a Kenyan conservationist and expert in raising orphaned elephants. Daphne Akhurst (1904-1933) was an Australian tennis player who won five Grand Slam singles titles in the 1920s.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Daphne
People
Daphne + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Daphne 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
Daphne: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Daphne?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 36,293 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Daphne 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 9,444 US residents.
Is Daphne a common name?
We classify Daphne as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 42,441 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Daphne most popular?
The single biggest year for Daphne was 2024, when 1,564 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Daphne is about 33 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Daphne in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 33,598 people with the name Daphne, or 11.12 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,173 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 Daphne 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 Daphne?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Daphne appears almost entirely female. Of the 33,602 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Daphne?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Daphne is White at 53.0%. The next largest groups are Black (22.8%) and Hispanic (13.9%). 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 Daphne most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Daphne in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.0% (17,799 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 Daphne in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Daphne a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Daphne in the SSA data are female. 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 Daphne still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Daphne 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 Daphne 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 are called Daphne?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.