Darby
From an English place name, possibly meaning "deer town".
Name Census estimates that about 10,372 living Americans carry the first name Darby. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 73.9% of registrations being female. The average person named Darby today is around 33 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Darby births was 1995 (539 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Darby. 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 Darby with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
10K
~ 1 in 33,046 Americans
Peak year
1995
539 babies that year
Average age
33
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,174
Tracked since 1913
Census
Darby in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 9,896 people with the first name Darby, which placed it at #2,485 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
#2,485
National first-name rank
People counted
9.9K
9,896 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Darby
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Darby is White at 87.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.8%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). 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 Darby 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 Darby at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.2% · 8,634
- Hispanic or Latino4.8% · 472
- Two or more races4.0% · 393
- Black or African American2.5% · 246
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 94
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 57
Gender
Gender distribution for Darby
Darby is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 11,196 total registrations, 2,927 (26.1%) were male and 8,269 (73.9%) were female.
Darby as a male name
- Ranked #7,855 in 2024
- 10 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1970 (130 births)
Darby as a female name
- Ranked #3,174 in 2024
- 50 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1995 (491 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Darby on both sides of the split. Of the 9,906 people counted with this name, 2,372 were male (23.9%) and 7,534 were female (76.1%).
Popularity
Darby: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Darby from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 2,965 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Darby 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 Darby during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Darbys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 38 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Darby, while Nevada, Connecticut, Nebraska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 131 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Darby
Darby is an English given name with origins dating back to the Middle Ages. It is derived from the Old Norse word "deor" which means "deer" and the Old English word "by" meaning a village or town. The name likely originated as a surname referring to someone who lived near a deer park or was involved in hunting deer.
In its earliest recorded use as a first name, Darby appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086, a manuscript record of a survey of land ownership and wealth in parts of medieval England. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Darby de Isny, a Norman nobleman mentioned in 12th century records.
The name Darby has connections to religious history as well. Saint Darby was a 7th century Irish monk and missionary who helped spread Christianity in parts of modern-day France and Belgium. His feast day is celebrated on April 11th by some Christian denominations.
Notable individuals named Darby throughout history include Darby Field (c.1610-c.1649), an English-born American settler who is credited with leading the first organized migration from Massachusetts to the Connecticut River Valley in 1639. John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was an influential Anglo-Irish evangelist and one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren movement.
Other famous bearers of the name include Darby Crash (1958-1980), the American punk rock singer and songwriter whose real name was Jan Paul Beahm. William John Darby (1801-1854) was a British civil engineer who designed and constructed the first major iron bridge in India, now known as the Darby Bridge.
American football player Darby Moore (1965-2022) played in the NFL for the Detroit Lions and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1990s. Darby Stanchfield (born 1971) is an American actress best known for her role as Abby Whelan on the television series Scandal.
People
Darby + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Darby 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
Darby: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Darby?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,372 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Darby 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 33,046 US residents.
Is Darby a common name?
We classify Darby as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 11,196 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Darby most popular?
The single biggest year for Darby was 1995, when 539 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Darby 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 Darby in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 9,896 people with the name Darby, or 3.28 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,485 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 Darby 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 Darby?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Darby on both sides of the split. Of the 9,906 people counted with this name, 2,372 were male (23.9%) and 7,534 were female (76.1%). 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 Darby?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Darby is White at 87.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.8%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). 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 Darby most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Darby in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.2% (8,634 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 Darby in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Darby a female name?
Yes, 73.9% of people registered as Darby 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 Darby still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Darby 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 Darby 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 Darby?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.