Dewey
A masculine name from the Norman French meaning "the highly esteemed one".
Name Census estimates that about 12,909 living Americans carry the first name Dewey. It is a predominantly male name (98.4% of registrations). The average person named Dewey today is around 66 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dewey births was 1898 (1,219 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dewey. 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.
Key insights
- • Although Dewey is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 547 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Dewey is about 66 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Deweys were born before 1970.
People living today
13K
~ 1 in 26,552 Americans
Peak year
1898
1,219 babies that year
Average age
66
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,613
Tracked since 1887
Census
Dewey in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 11,845 people with the first name Dewey, which placed it at #2,214 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
#2,214
National first-name rank
People counted
12K
11,845 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
84.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dewey
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dewey is White at 84.5%. The next largest groups are Black (7.6%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). 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 Dewey 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 Dewey at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White84.5% · 10,011
- Black or African American7.6% · 904
- Two or more races3.3% · 385
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.7% · 201
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 183
- Hispanic or Latino1.4% · 161
Gender
Gender distribution for Dewey
Dewey leans heavily male at 98.4% of total registrations, but 547 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Dewey as a male name
- Ranked #3,613 in 2024
- 31 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1898 (1,115 births)
Dewey as a female name
- Ranked #6,189 in 1956
- 5 female births in 1956
- Peak: 1898 (104 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dewey appears almost entirely male. Of the 11,845 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Dewey: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dewey from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 7,370 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dewey 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 Dewey during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Deweys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 40 states and territories. North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama recorded the most babies named Dewey, while Hawaii, District of Columbia, Arizona recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 670 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dewey
The name Dewey is an English surname that later became a given name. It originated as a toponymic surname, derived from the Old English word "deaw" meaning "dew" or "moisture." The name likely referred to someone who lived near a dewy meadow or wetland area.
In its earliest recorded use as a surname, it appeared as "de la Dewe" in the 13th century Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire, England. Over time, the surname evolved into the simplified form "Dewey." As a first name, Dewey became popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in the United States.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the given name Dewey was Dewey Bates, an American politician who served as the 16th Governor of Delaware from 1873 to 1877. Another notable figure was Admiral George Dewey (1837-1917), a celebrated naval commander in the Spanish-American War, who became a national hero for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898.
The name gained further prominence with Melvil Dewey (1851-1931), an American librarian and educator who developed the Dewey Decimal Classification system for organizing library collections. This system, introduced in 1876, revolutionized library organization and is still widely used today.
In the field of philosophy, John Dewey (1859-1952) was a prominent American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was a leading proponent of the philosophical school of pragmatism and made significant contributions to the development of functional psychology and progressive education.
Another individual worth mentioning is Thomas E. Dewey (1902-1971), an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th Governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was also the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in 1944 and 1948, but lost both times to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, respectively.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Dewey
People
Dewey + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dewey 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
Dewey: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dewey?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12,909 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dewey 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 26,552 US residents.
Is Dewey a common name?
We classify Dewey as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 34,892 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dewey most popular?
The single biggest year for Dewey was 1898, when 1,219 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dewey is about 66 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dewey in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 11,845 people with the name Dewey, or 3.92 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,214 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 Dewey 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 Dewey?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dewey appears almost entirely male. Of the 11,845 people counted with this name, 99.1% 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 Dewey?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dewey is White at 84.5%. The next largest groups are Black (7.6%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). 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 Dewey most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dewey in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.5% (10,011 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 Dewey in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dewey a male name?
Yes, 98.4% of people registered as Dewey 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 Dewey still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dewey 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 Dewey 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 have Dewey as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.