Dennis
A masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "wild" or "untamed".
Name Census estimates that about 441,864 living Americans carry the first name Dennis. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Dennis today is around 64 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dennis births was 1952 (24,605 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dennis. 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 Dennis with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Dennis is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 2,691 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1950s, recent registration numbers for Dennis have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
442K
~ 1 in 776 Americans
Peak year
1952
24,605 babies that year
Average age
64
years old
2024 SSA rank
#708
Tracked since 1880
Census
Dennis in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 448,313 people with the first name Dennis, which placed it at #104 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
#104
National first-name rank
People counted
448K
448,313 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
148.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
82.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dennis
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dennis is White at 82.7%. The next largest groups are Black (7.2%) and Hispanic (4.7%). 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 Dennis 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 Dennis at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White82.7% · 370,932
- Black or African American7.2% · 32,306
- Hispanic or Latino4.7% · 21,087
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.7% · 12,185
- Two or more races2.0% · 9,026
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 2,777
Gender
Gender distribution for Dennis
Out of the 623,306 babies given the name Dennis since 1880, 99.6% 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.
Dennis as a male name
- Ranked #708 in 2024
- 376 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1952 (24,552 births)
Dennis as a female name
- Ranked #15,839 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1947 (72 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dennis appears almost entirely male. Of the 448,312 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Dennis: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dennis from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 204,784 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dennis 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 Dennis during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Dennis' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Dennis, while Alaska, Delaware, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 12,079 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dennis
The name Dennis has its origins in the ancient Greek language. It is derived from the Greek name Dionysios, which was a theophoric name meaning "follower of Dionysus," the Greek god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy. The name Dionysios was later Latinized to Dionysius.
The name Dennis emerged as a French diminutive form of Dionysius, taking the form "Denis" in French. It is believed that the French form Denis was introduced to England after the Norman Conquest in 1066, where it eventually evolved into the English spelling Dennis.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Dennis is Saint Dennis, also known as Saint Dionysius, who is said to have been the first bishop of Paris in the 3rd century AD. According to tradition, he was martyred and beheaded for his faith around 258 AD, becoming one of the most revered martyrs of the Catholic Church.
Another notable figure in history with the name Dennis is Dennis the Carthusian (1384-1471), a influential Catholic theologian, philosopher, and spiritual writer from the Low Countries. He is best known for his works on mystical theology and his commentaries on various books of the Bible.
In the realm of literature, the name Dennis is associated with the English poet and satirist John Dennis (1657-1734), who was a prominent critic and playwright during the Restoration period in England. He is particularly remembered for his critiques of the works of William Shakespeare and John Dryden.
The name Dennis also has a connection to the American Revolution through Dennis Smythe (1740-1818), an American silversmith and patriot who participated in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. He is credited with being one of the leaders of the "mob" that boarded the ships and dumped the tea into Boston Harbor.
In the realm of science, Dennis Gabor (1900-1979) was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the theory of holography, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971.
These are just a few examples of notable figures throughout history who bore the name Dennis, illustrating its rich heritage and diverse cultural connections.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Dennis
People
Dennis + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dennis 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
Dennis: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dennis?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 441,864 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dennis 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 776 US residents.
Is Dennis a common name?
We classify Dennis as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 623,306 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dennis most popular?
The single biggest year for Dennis was 1952, when 24,605 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dennis is about 64 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dennis in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 448,313 people with the name Dennis, or 148.43 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #104 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 Dennis 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 Dennis?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dennis appears almost entirely male. Of the 448,312 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Dennis?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dennis is White at 82.7%. The next largest groups are Black (7.2%) and Hispanic (4.7%). 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 Dennis most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dennis in the 2020 Census, accounting for 82.7% (370,932 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 Dennis in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dennis a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Dennis 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 Dennis still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dennis 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 Dennis 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 share the name Dennis?
Find out how many people have the name Dennis on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.