Delorean
A French variant spelling of the feminine name "Delores", from Latin meaning "sorrow".
Name Census estimates that about 332 living Americans carry the first name Delorean. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 86.6% of registrations being male. The average person named Delorean today is around 31 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Delorean births was 1984 (36 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Delorean. 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.
People living today
332
~ 1 in 1,032,393 Americans
Peak year
1984
36 babies that year
Average age
31
years old
2023 SSA rank
#10,498
Tracked since 1982
Census
Delorean in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 283 people with the first name Delorean, which placed it at #30,644 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
#30,644
National first-name rank
People counted
283
283 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
76.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Delorean
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Delorean is Black at 76.3%. The next largest groups are White (9.9%) and Hispanic (6.7%). 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 Delorean 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 Delorean at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American76.3% · 216
- White9.9% · 28
- Hispanic or Latino6.7% · 19
- Two or more races4.9% · 14
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.1% · 3
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 3
Gender
Gender distribution for Delorean
Delorean leans heavily male at 86.6% of total registrations, but 46 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Delorean as a male name
- Ranked #12,649 in 2023
- 5 male births in 2023
- Peak: 1984 (26 births)
Delorean as a female name
- Ranked #10,498 in 1990
- 7 female births in 1990
- Peak: 1984 (10 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Delorean on both sides of the split. Of the 282 people counted with this name, 204 were male (72.3%) and 78 were female (27.7%).
Popularity
Delorean: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Delorean from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 190 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Delorean 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 Delorean during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Deloreans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 4 states and territories. Michigan, Illinois, Ohio recorded the most babies named Delorean, while California, Ohio, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 10 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Delorean
The name Delorean has its roots in the Gaulish and Celtic cultures of ancient Europe. It is derived from the Proto-Celtic word "delou" meaning "to spin" or "to turn", and was likely originally used as a surname or descriptive epithet for someone who worked as a potter or weaver.
In the early medieval period, the name began to appear in various Latinized forms in church records and chronicles across Gaul and the British Isles. Spellings like "Delorius", "Delorian", and "Delorianus" can be found in documents from the 6th to 9th centuries AD.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with this name was Delorius of Vienne, a Gallo-Roman landowner and Catholic bishop who lived in the late 5th century in what is now southeastern France. Another early bearer was the 7th century Irish monk Delorian of Clonmacnoise, one of the most renowned scholars and calligraphers of his era.
During the High Middle Ages, the name spread across Europe as the Normans and other Germanic peoples adopted and adapted it. A Delorian de Beaumont fought for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Nearly two centuries later, Sir Delorian du Bois accompanied Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land.
In the Renaissance period, the Italian artist and architect Deloriano Bramante (c.1444-1514) designed St. Peter's Basilica and other iconic buildings in Rome under the patronage of several popes. Around the same time, the Spanish navigator Delorean de Magallanes (c.1480-1521) led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
Perhaps the most famous bearer in modern times was the American engineer and automobile tycoon John Delorean (1925-2005), inventor of the iconic Delorean sports car featured in the Back to the Future movie trilogy.
People
Delorean + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Delorean 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
Delorean: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Delorean?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 332 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Delorean 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 1,032,393 US residents.
Is Delorean a common name?
We classify Delorean as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 343 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Delorean most popular?
The single biggest year for Delorean was 1984, when 36 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Delorean is about 31 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Delorean in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 283 people with the name Delorean, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #30,644 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 Delorean 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 Delorean?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Delorean on both sides of the split. Of the 282 people counted with this name, 204 were male (72.3%) and 78 were female (27.7%). 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 Delorean?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Delorean is Black at 76.3%. The next largest groups are White (9.9%) and Hispanic (6.7%). 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 Delorean most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Delorean in the 2020 Census, accounting for 76.3% (216 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 Delorean in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Delorean a male name?
Yes, 86.6% of people registered as Delorean 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 Delorean still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Delorean 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 Delorean 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 named Delorean?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.