Deacon
Derived from Greek meaning "servant" or "minister."
Name Census estimates that about 10,936 living Americans carry the first name Deacon. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Deacon today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Deacon births was 2014 (734 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Deacon. 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 Deacon with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Deacon is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 12 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
11K
~ 1 in 31,342 Americans
Peak year
2014
734 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2024 SSA rank
#550
Tracked since 1971
Census
Deacon in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 7,812 people with the first name Deacon, which placed it at #2,915 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
#2,915
National first-name rank
People counted
7.8K
7,812 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
82.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Deacon
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Deacon is White at 82.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (7.2%) and Hispanic (6.1%). 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 Deacon 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 Deacon at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White82.0% · 6,402
- Two or more races7.2% · 560
- Hispanic or Latino6.1% · 478
- Black or African American2.6% · 202
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 90
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 80
Popularity
Deacon: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Deacon from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 5,505 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Deacon remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Deacon 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 Deacon during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Deacons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 45 states and territories. Texas, California, Ohio recorded the most babies named Deacon, while Delaware, New Mexico, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 216 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Deacon
The name Deacon has its origins in the Late Greek period, derived from the Greek word "diakonos" meaning "servant" or "minister". It originally referred to a servant or attendant in a Christian church who assisted in performing certain religious duties and charitable tasks.
The name gained prominence with the rise of Christianity and the establishment of the diaconate, an ordained ministry rank in Christian churches. The office of the deacon dates back to the early days of the Christian church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Deacon can be found in the 4th century AD, when a Christian deacon named Deacon Laurentius was martyred in Rome under the persecution of Emperor Valerian in 258 AD. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and is known as Saint Lawrence.
In the 6th century, Deacon Agapetus was a prominent figure in the Byzantine Empire, serving as a deacon and ambassador for Emperor Justinian I. He later became Pope Agapetus I, reigning from 535 to 536 AD.
During the Middle Ages, the name Deacon was used by several notable figures in the Church. One example is Deacon Alcuin of York, an English scholar, ecclesiastic, and poet who served as the leading scholar and teacher at the court of Charlemagne in the late 8th century.
In the 12th century, Deacon Arnaldo da Brescia was an Italian religious reformer and political agitator who preached against the secular power and wealth of the Catholic Church. He was eventually executed for his beliefs in 1155.
Another prominent figure with the name Deacon was Deacon Brodie, a Scottish cabinet maker, deacon of a trades guild, and notorious thief in the late 18th century. His dual life as a respected craftsman and criminal inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".
People
Deacon + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Deacon 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
Deacon: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Deacon?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 10,936 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Deacon 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 31,342 US residents.
Is Deacon a common name?
We classify Deacon as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 11,038 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Deacon most popular?
The single biggest year for Deacon was 2014, when 734 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Deacon is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Deacon in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 7,812 people with the name Deacon, or 2.59 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,915 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 Deacon 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 Deacon?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Deacon appears almost entirely male. Of the 7,805 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Deacon?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Deacon is White at 82.0%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (7.2%) and Hispanic (6.1%). 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 Deacon most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Deacon in the 2020 Census, accounting for 82.0% (6,402 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 Deacon in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Deacon a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Deacon 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 Deacon still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Deacon 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 Deacon 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 common is the name Deacon?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.