Dana
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "great judge".
Name Census estimates that about 208,280 living Americans carry the first name Dana. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 78.4% of registrations being female. The average person named Dana today is around 51 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dana births was 1971 (8,032 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dana. 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 Dana with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Compared to the 1960s, recent registration numbers for Dana have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
208K
~ 1 in 1,646 Americans
Peak year
1971
8,032 babies that year
Average age
51
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,077
Tracked since 1880
Census
Dana in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 210,585 people with the first name Dana, which placed it at #264 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
#264
National first-name rank
People counted
211K
210,585 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
69.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dana
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dana is White at 80.3%. The next largest groups are Black (9.0%) and Hispanic (5.1%). 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 Dana 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 Dana at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.3% · 169,129
- Black or African American9.0% · 18,999
- Hispanic or Latino5.1% · 10,785
- Two or more races3.1% · 6,497
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.7% · 3,611
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 1,564
Gender
Gender distribution for Dana
Dana is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 246,572 total registrations, 53,261 (21.6%) were male and 193,311 (78.4%) were female.
Dana as a male name
- Ranked #4,206 in 2024
- 25 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1962 (1,796 births)
Dana as a female name
- Ranked #1,077 in 2024
- 230 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1971 (6,934 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dana leans strongly female. 172,431 people counted with this name were female (81.9%), compared with 38,148 male bearers (18.1%).
Popularity
Dana: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dana from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 61,128 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dana 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 Dana during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 90 | 45 | 135 |
| 1890s | 108 | 100 | 208 |
| 1900s | 134 | 113 | 247 |
| 1910s | 669 | 367 | 1,036 |
| 1920s | 1,177 | 768 | 1,945 |
| 1930s | 1,292 | 1,232 | 2,524 |
| 1940s | 4,859 | 5,429 | 10,288 |
| 1950s | 15,159 | 17,106 | 32,265 |
| 1960s | 13,427 | 47,701 | 61,128 |
| 1970s | 8,325 | 51,361 | 59,686 |
| 1980s | 4,655 | 36,825 | 41,480 |
| 1990s | 2,123 | 19,283 | 21,406 |
| 2000s | 770 | 7,942 | 8,712 |
| 2010s | 355 | 3,827 | 4,182 |
| 2020s | 118 | 1,212 | 1,330 |
Geography
Where Danas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Dana, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 4,677 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dana
The name Dana is derived from the Danish and Norwegian word "dann" which means "from the Danes". It originated as a male name in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, around the 12th century.
Dana has origins as a feminine name as well, stemming from the Hebrew name "Dina" which means "judged" or "vindicated". This version of the name can be traced back to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, where Dina was the daughter of Jacob and Leah.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Dana was in 1586, when Sir Philip Sidney wrote the poetry collection "Arcadia" which featured a character named Dana. In the 17th century, the name was popularized in England by the Puritan movement, who favored biblical names.
Notable historical figures named Dana include Dana Scully, the fictional FBI agent in the TV series "The X-Files" played by Gillian Anderson. In literature, there was Dana Randolph, a character in the novel "The Ambassadors" by Henry James, published in 1903.
Dana Carvey, the American actor and comedian known for his work on "Saturday Night Live", was born in 1955. Another famous Dana is Dana Andrews, the American actor who starred in films such as "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) and "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943). He was born in 1909 and died in 1992.
In ancient history, there was Dana, a king of the Parthian Empire who ruled from 77 to 88 AD. Additionally, Dana was the name of a Hindu goddess of fertility and abundance, associated with the moon and water.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Dana
People
Dana + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dana 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
Dana: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dana?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 208,280 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dana 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 1,646 US residents.
Is Dana a common name?
We classify Dana as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 246,572 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dana most popular?
The single biggest year for Dana was 1971, when 8,032 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dana is about 51 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dana in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 210,585 people with the name Dana, or 69.72 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #264 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 Dana 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 Dana?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dana leans strongly female. 172,431 people counted with this name were female (81.9%), compared with 38,148 male bearers (18.1%). 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 Dana?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dana is White at 80.3%. The next largest groups are Black (9.0%) and Hispanic (5.1%). 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 Dana most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dana in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.3% (169,129 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 Dana in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dana a female name?
Yes, 78.4% of people registered as Dana 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 Dana still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dana 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 Dana 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 Dana?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.