Davy
Diminutive form of the Hebrew name David, meaning "beloved".
Name Census estimates that about 2,468 living Americans carry the first name Davy. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 89.7% of registrations being male. The average person named Davy today is around 44 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Davy births was 1955 (195 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Davy. 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 Davy with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.5K
~ 1 in 138,879 Americans
Peak year
1955
195 babies that year
Average age
44
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,832
Tracked since 1917
Census
Davy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,458 people with the first name Davy, which placed it at #6,507 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
#6,507
National first-name rank
People counted
2.5K
2,458 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
52.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Davy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Davy is White at 52.9%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (21.1%) and Hispanic (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 Davy 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 Davy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White52.9% · 1,300
- Asian and Pacific Islander21.1% · 518
- Hispanic or Latino12.5% · 308
- Black or African American8.7% · 214
- Two or more races3.3% · 82
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 36
Gender
Gender distribution for Davy
Davy leans heavily male at 89.7% of total registrations, but 306 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Davy as a male name
- Ranked #2,832 in 2024
- 45 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1955 (195 births)
Davy as a female name
- Ranked #5,975 in 2024
- 20 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (34 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Davy leans strongly male. 2,021 people counted with this name were male (82.5%), compared with 429 female bearers (17.5%).
Popularity
Davy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Davy from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 586 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1950s peak, Davy remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Davy 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 Davy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Davys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 20 states and territories. Texas, California, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Davy, while Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 29 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Davy
The name Davy has its origins in the Hebrew name David, which means "beloved" or "friend." It is derived from the Hebrew word "dod," meaning "beloved." The name David has been in use since ancient times and is found in the Bible as the name of the iconic King David of Israel, who ruled in the 10th century BC.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Davy as a diminutive form of David can be traced back to the Middle Ages in England. It was a common nickname or pet name used for individuals named David during that time period. The spelling "Davy" emerged as a variant of the more traditional diminutive "Davie."
In the 16th century, the Scottish poet and playwright David Lindsay is known to have used the spelling "Davy" in his writings, which may have contributed to its wider adoption and popularity. Another notable figure from the same era is Davy Crockett, the famous American folk hero and frontiersman who was born in 1786 and died at the Alamo in 1836.
One of the most renowned individuals to bear the name Davy is the English chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy, who lived from 1778 to 1829. He is credited with the invention of the Davy lamp, a safety lamp for use in coal mines, and made significant contributions to the fields of chemistry and electrochemistry.
Another famous Davy was the English pirate and explorer Davy Jones, who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. His name has become associated with the mythical "Davy Jones's Locker," a metaphor for the bottom of the sea, where drowned sailors were said to go.
In the realm of literature, the character Davy Prentiss Jr. from John Irving's novel "The Cider House Rules" is a notable example of the name's use in modern times. The novel was published in 1985 and later adapted into a film in 1999.
People
Davy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Davy 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
Davy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Davy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,468 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Davy 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 138,879 US residents.
Is Davy a common name?
We classify Davy as "Rare". It ranks above 94.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,967 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Davy most popular?
The single biggest year for Davy was 1955, when 195 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Davy is about 44 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Davy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,458 people with the name Davy, or 0.81 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,507 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 Davy 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 Davy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Davy leans strongly male. 2,021 people counted with this name were male (82.5%), compared with 429 female bearers (17.5%). 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 Davy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Davy is White at 52.9%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (21.1%) and Hispanic (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 Davy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Davy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 52.9% (1,300 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 Davy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Davy a male name?
Yes, 89.7% of people registered as Davy 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 Davy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Davy 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 Davy 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 share the name Davy?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.