Dave
Dave reached its high-water mark in 1959 at number 119, and has been recorded 64,492 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 2,451st. About 36,000 Daves are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 65.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Dave boys named Dave
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 64,492
- Estimated living today
- 36,000
- Median age today
- 65
- Peak year
- 1959
- Best rank
- 119th
- Rank in 2025
- 2,451st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 114 / 64,378
How old the living Daves are
born that year still alive today
Of the 64,492 babies given the name since 1880, about 36,000 are alive — 56 in every hundred. Roughly 1,300 of them are children and 19,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1960 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.
Notable Daves
- Dave Grohl (born 1969)American rock musician
- Dave Bautista (born 1969)American actor and former professional wrestler
- Dave Mustaine (born 1961)American musician
- Dave Brubeck (1920–2012)American jazz pianist and composer
- Dave Franco (born 1985)American actor
- Dave Chappelle (born 1973)American comedian and actor
- Dave Farrell (born 1977)American bassist
- Dave Gahan (born 1962)English singer
People named Dave with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Dave is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Dave is most concentrated in Montana (2.5×), Washington (2.3×), Oregon (2.0×), Michigan (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1959
The most popular boys’ names the year Dave peaked:
Dave elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Dave | 1,160 | 274th |
| England and Wales boys | Dave | 245 | 1,299th |
| Belgium boys | Dave | 118 | 593rd |
| Ireland boys | Dave | 43 | 403rd |
| Poland boys | Dave | 3 birth registrations | 588th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Dave: rank by region
In 2006, Dave was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Dave | 702 | 6 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Dave by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 6 | 443rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Dave among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Dave | 6,611 | 7,449 |
| the Netherlands girls | Dave | — | 60 |
| Finland boys | Dave | 37 | 55 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Dave 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.