Damien
A masculine name derived from the Greek meaning "to tame" or "subdue".
Name Census estimates that about 62,469 living Americans carry the first name Damien. It sits at #344 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Damien today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Damien births was 2007 (2,265 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Damien. 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 Damien with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Damien is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 261 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
62K
~ 1 in 5,487 Americans
Peak year
2007
2,265 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2024 SSA rank
#344
Tracked since 1936
Census
Damien in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 49,455 people with the first name Damien, which placed it at #912 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
#912
National first-name rank
People counted
49K
49,455 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
16.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
42.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Damien
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Damien is White at 42.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (26.8%) and Black (20.1%). 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 Damien 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 Damien at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White42.6% · 21,075
- Hispanic or Latino26.8% · 13,277
- Black or African American20.1% · 9,929
- Two or more races7.0% · 3,478
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 1,036
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 660
Gender
Gender distribution for Damien
Out of the 64,068 babies given the name Damien 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.
Damien as a male name
- Ranked #344 in 2024
- 999 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2007 (2,265 births)
Damien as a female name
- Ranked #17,181 in 2013
- 5 female births in 2013
- Peak: 1979 (22 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Damien appears almost entirely male. Of the 49,449 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Damien: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Damien from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 18,566 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Damien 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 Damien during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Damiens live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Damien, while South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,214 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Damien
The name Damien has its origins in the Late Latin name Damianus, which itself derived from the Greek name Damianos. Damianos is thought to have emerged from the Greek word "damian" which means "to tame" or "to subdue." The name was likely given to those perceived as having a calming presence or the ability to tame wild animals or unruly people.
One of the earliest known references to the name Damien comes from ancient Christian texts, where Saint Damian was a 3rd-century physician and martyr. Along with his twin brother Cosmas, the two were among the earliest unmercenaryized Christian physicians and are celebrated as the patrons of physicians, midwives, and pharmacists in many Christian traditions.
Another early historical figure with the name was Damien of Alexandria, a 7th-century Patriarch of Alexandria who played a role in the monothelite controversy within the Byzantine Empire. During the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 639 AD, Damien negotiated the terms of surrender for the city of Alexandria.
In the 19th century, one of the most famous bearers of the name was Father Damien, born Jozef De Veuster, a Catholic priest from Belgium who became known for his missionary work with lepers in Hawaii. He died in 1889 at the age of 49 after contracting leprosy while living and working among leper colonies on the island of Molokai.
Other notable historical figures named Damien include Damien Daufresne, a 17th-century French missionary and explorer who accompanied René-Robert Cavelier on his final expedition to the Mississippi River in 1687. Damien Hirst, born in 1965, is a leading British artist known for his works using preserved animals and diamonds.
Damien Chazelle, born in 1985, is an American filmmaker and writer best known for directing the critically acclaimed films Whiplash and La La Land, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. Damien Lewis, born in 1971, is a renowned British actor who has starred in numerous films and television shows, including Band of Brothers and Homeland.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Damien
People
Damien + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Damien 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
Damien: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Damien?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 62,469 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Damien 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 5,487 US residents.
Is Damien a common name?
We classify Damien as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 64,068 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Damien most popular?
The single biggest year for Damien was 2007, when 2,265 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Damien is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Damien in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 49,455 people with the name Damien, or 16.37 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #912 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 Damien 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 Damien?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Damien appears almost entirely male. Of the 49,449 people counted with this name, 99.6% 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 Damien?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Damien is White at 42.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (26.8%) and Black (20.1%). 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 Damien most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Damien in the 2020 Census, accounting for 42.6% (21,075 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 Damien in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Damien a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Damien 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 Damien still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Damien 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 Damien 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 the name Damien?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.