Danisha
A feminine name with origins in Urdu meaning "the one with knowledge".
Name Census estimates that about 2,326 living Americans carry the first name Danisha. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Danisha today is around 32 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Danisha births was 1994 (154 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Danisha. 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 Danisha with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.3K
~ 1 in 147,358 Americans
Peak year
1994
154 babies that year
Average age
32
years old
2024 SSA rank
#15,791
Tracked since 1969
Census
Danisha in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,012 people with the first name Danisha, which placed it at #7,545 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
#7,545
National first-name rank
People counted
2.0K
2,012 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
72.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Danisha
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Danisha is Black at 72.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.9%) and White (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 Danisha 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 Danisha at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American72.0% · 1,449
- Hispanic or Latino16.9% · 340
- White4.7% · 94
- Two or more races3.3% · 67
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 43
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 19
Popularity
Danisha: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Danisha from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 988 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Danisha 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 Danisha during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Danishas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 17 states and territories. California, New York, Florida recorded the most babies named Danisha, while Washington, South Carolina, Tennessee recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 56 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Danisha
The name Danisha is thought to have originated from the Persian language, where it is derived from the word "danesh," meaning knowledge or wisdom. It is believed to have been first used in ancient Persia, which is modern-day Iran, during the time of the Achaemenid Empire, around the 6th century BCE.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Danisha can be found in the Avestan texts, which are the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. In these texts, the name is mentioned as a reference to a wise and knowledgeable individual.
Throughout history, the name Danisha has been used across various cultures and regions, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. One notable figure who bore this name was Danisha al-Isfahani, a renowned Persian scholar and poet who lived during the 10th century CE. She was highly respected for her contributions to literature and poetry, and her works are still studied and admired today.
Another prominent individual with the name Danisha was Danisha Parveen, a 16th-century Mughal princess from the Indian subcontinent. She was known for her intelligence, her love of learning, and her patronage of the arts and sciences.
In the 18th century, there was a famous Muslim scholar and jurist named Danisha Fatima, who was renowned for her expertise in Islamic jurisprudence and her dedication to educating women in religious studies.
Moving forward in time, Danisha Khatun was a prominent Bengali writer and social reformer who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She advocated for women's education and the empowerment of women in Bengal, and her literary works were instrumental in shaping the Bengali literary landscape of that era.
Despite its ancient roots, the name Danisha has remained popular throughout the centuries, with many individuals bearing this name and making significant contributions to various fields, including literature, arts, sciences, and academia.
People
Danisha + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Danisha 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
Danisha: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Danisha?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,326 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Danisha 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 147,358 US residents.
Is Danisha a common name?
We classify Danisha as "Rare". It ranks above 94.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,421 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Danisha most popular?
The single biggest year for Danisha was 1994, when 154 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Danisha is about 32 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Danisha in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,012 people with the name Danisha, or 0.67 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #7,545 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 Danisha 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 Danisha?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Danisha appears almost entirely female. Of the 2,010 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Danisha?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Danisha is Black at 72.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.9%) and White (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 Danisha most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Danisha in the 2020 Census, accounting for 72.0% (1,449 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 Danisha in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Danisha a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Danisha 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 Danisha still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Danisha 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 Danisha 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 Americans are named Danisha?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.