Dyllan
A diminutive form of the Welsh name Dylan, meaning "great sea".
Name Census estimates that about 3,724 living Americans carry the first name Dyllan. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 87.0% of registrations being male. The average person named Dyllan today is around 22 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dyllan births was 1999 (187 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dyllan. 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 Dyllan with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
3.7K
~ 1 in 92,039 Americans
Peak year
1999
187 babies that year
Average age
22
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,922
Tracked since 1986
Census
Dyllan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,120 people with the first name Dyllan, which placed it at #5,490 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
#5,490
National first-name rank
People counted
3.1K
3,120 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dyllan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dyllan is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.8%) and Black (8.0%). 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 Dyllan 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 Dyllan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.5% · 2,013
- Hispanic or Latino16.8% · 524
- Black or African American8.0% · 251
- Two or more races6.1% · 191
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.5% · 108
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 33
Gender
Gender distribution for Dyllan
Dyllan leans heavily male at 87.0% of total registrations, but 493 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Dyllan as a male name
- Ranked #6,922 in 2024
- 12 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1999 (181 births)
Dyllan as a female name
- Ranked #13,904 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2010 (37 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dyllan leans strongly male. 2,696 people counted with this name were male (86.7%), compared with 414 female bearers (13.3%).
Popularity
Dyllan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dyllan 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 1,548 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
Dyllan 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 Dyllan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Dyllans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 30 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Dyllan, while Nevada, Minnesota, Kansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 55 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Dyllan
The name Dyllan is a variant spelling of the Welsh name Dylan, which originated from the Welsh elements "dy" meaning "great" and "llan" meaning "born." This combination suggests that the name Dylan means "great birth" or "great sailor." The name Dylan has its roots in Welsh mythology and is associated with the legendary figure Dylan Ail Don, a sea god or sea deity in Welsh folklore.
The earliest recorded use of the name Dylan dates back to the 6th century AD, where it appears in the Welsh Triads, a collection of traditional stories and legends. One of these triads mentions Dylan Ail Don as one of the three blessed youths of the Isle of Britain. The name gained popularity in Wales during the Middle Ages and was later adopted in other parts of Britain and beyond.
One of the earliest known individuals with the name Dylan was Dylan ap Gwilym, a Welsh poet who lived from around 1300 to 1370. He is considered one of the greatest poets of medieval Wales and is renowned for his cywyddau, a complex poetic form he helped popularize.
Another notable bearer of the name was Dylan Thomas, a renowned Welsh poet and writer born in 1914 and died in 1953. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, famous for works such as "Under Milk Wood" and "Do not go gentle into that good night."
In the realm of music, Dylan Marlais Thomas, born in 1949, is a Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist known for his contribution to the folk and folk-rock genres. He has released several albums and has been actively performing since the 1970s.
Moving to a different field, Dylan Wiliam, born in 1946, is a British educator and academic who has made significant contributions to the field of educational assessment and formative assessment practices. He is a professor emeritus at the UCL Institute of Education and has authored numerous books and articles on educational topics.
Another notable figure with the name Dylan is Dylan Alcott, an Australian paralympic tennis player and wheelchair basketball player born in 1990. He has won numerous Grand Slam titles and gold medals in both sports, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes with a disability in Australian history.
People
Dyllan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dyllan 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
Dyllan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dyllan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,724 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dyllan 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 92,039 US residents.
Is Dyllan a common name?
We classify Dyllan as "Rare". It ranks above 95.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 3,783 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dyllan most popular?
The single biggest year for Dyllan was 1999, when 187 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dyllan is about 22 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dyllan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,120 people with the name Dyllan, or 1.03 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,490 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 Dyllan 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 Dyllan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dyllan leans strongly male. 2,696 people counted with this name were male (86.7%), compared with 414 female bearers (13.3%). 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 Dyllan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dyllan is White at 64.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.8%) and Black (8.0%). 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 Dyllan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Dyllan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.5% (2,013 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 Dyllan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dyllan a male name?
Yes, 87.0% of people registered as Dyllan 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 Dyllan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dyllan 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 Dyllan 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 are named Dyllan?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.