Dacota
Dacota reached its high-water mark in 1997 at number 2,164, and has been recorded 679 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 2022. About 670 Dacotas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 26.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Dacota boys named Dacota
Girls and boys called Dacota
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 188 girls and 491 boys in all, and in 2003 the split was 14 to 14.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 12 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 679
- Estimated living today
- 670
- Median age today
- 26
- Peak year
- 1997
- Best rank
- 2,164th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1988
- Girls / boys
- 188 / 491
How old the living Dacotas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 679 babies given the name since 1988, about 670 are alive — 98 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1999 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where Dacota is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1997
The most popular boys’ names the year Dacota peaked:
Related names
Dacota against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.