Daly
From Gaelic meaning "from the assembly place".
Name Census estimates that about 350 living Americans carry the first name Daly. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 86.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Daly today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Daly births was 2002 (21 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Daly. 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
350
~ 1 in 979,298 Americans
Peak year
2002
21 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2022 SSA rank
#12,425
Tracked since 1988
Census
Daly in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 718 people with the first name Daly, which placed it at #15,879 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
#15,879
National first-name rank
People counted
718
718 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
48.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Daly
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Daly is White at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (29.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.5%). 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 Daly 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 Daly at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White48.9% · 351
- Hispanic or Latino29.5% · 212
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.5% · 90
- Black or African American5.8% · 42
- Two or more races2.8% · 20
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 3
Gender
Gender distribution for Daly
Daly leans heavily female at 86.5% of total registrations, but 48 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Daly as a male name
- Ranked #12,738 in 2022
- 5 male births in 2022
- Peak: 2006 (7 births)
Daly as a female name
- Ranked #12,425 in 2024
- 7 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2002 (21 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Daly on both sides of the split. Of the 718 people counted with this name, 197 were male (27.4%) and 521 were female (72.6%).
Popularity
Daly: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Daly from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 111 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Daly remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Daly 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 Daly during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Daly
The name Daly is derived from the Irish Gaelic word "dail," which means "assembly" or "meeting place." This name has its origins in ancient Celtic culture and can be traced back to the early medieval period in Ireland.
The name Daly is closely associated with the Dáil Éireann, the principal chamber of the Irish parliament. It is believed that the name may have originally referred to someone who lived near or was associated with an important meeting place or assembly area.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Daly dates back to the 12th century. In the Annals of the Four Masters, a historical chronicle compiled in the 17th century, there is a reference to a man named Daly O'Hanlon, who was a chief of the O'Hanlon clan in County Armagh, Ireland.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Daly. One of the most renowned was Denis Daly (1638-1690), an Irish Jacobite soldier and landowner who fought for the Catholic King James II during the Williamite War in Ireland. Another was Augustin Daly (1838-1899), an American playwright, theater manager, and critic who was influential in the development of American theater in the late 19th century.
In the field of literature, the name Daly is associated with the Irish writer and politician Dominic Daly (1798-1868), who served as a member of the British House of Commons and wrote several works on Irish history and politics.
In sports, one of the most famous bearers of the name Daly was John Daly (born 1966), an American professional golfer known for his prodigious driving distance and colorful personality. He won two major championships, the 1991 PGA Championship and the 1995 Open Championship.
Another notable individual with the name Daly was Michael Daly (1924-2008), an Irish Republican Army member and writer who was actively involved in the Irish republican movement and served as the editor of the Irish Democrat newspaper.
People
Daly + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Daly 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
Daly: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Daly?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 350 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Daly 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 979,298 US residents.
Is Daly a common name?
We classify Daly as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 356 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Daly most popular?
The single biggest year for Daly was 2002, when 21 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Daly is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Daly in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 718 people with the name Daly, or 0.24 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #15,879 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 Daly 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 Daly?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Daly on both sides of the split. Of the 718 people counted with this name, 197 were male (27.4%) and 521 were female (72.6%). 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 Daly?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Daly is White at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (29.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.5%). 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 Daly most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Daly in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.9% (351 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 Daly in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Daly a female name?
Yes, 86.5% of people registered as Daly 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 Daly still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Daly 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 Daly 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 Daly?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.