Dance
org · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Dance is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Middle English dauncen, daunsen, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman dauncer, dancer (“to dance”) (compare Old French dancier), from Frankish *þansōn (“to draw, pull, stretch out, gesture”) (compare Ol.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 34K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 47K
- USUnited States1 in 116K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 289 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 34K (inferred from the name graph)
2,869 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Middle Englishdauncen(measured from records)
- Anglo-Normandauncer“to dance”(measured from records)
- Frankish*þansōn“to draw“to draw, pull, stretch out, gesture”(measured from records)
- Proto-West Germanic*þansōn(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*tens-“to stretch“to stretch, pull”(measured from records)
- Latinsaltāre“to leap“to leap, dance”(measured from records)
From Middle English dauncen, daunsen, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman dauncer, dancer (“to dance”) (compare Old French dancier), from Frankish *þansōn (“to draw, pull, stretch out, gesture”) (compare Old High German dansōn (“to draw, pull”)), from Proto-West Germanic *þansōn, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tens- (“to stretch, pull”). Replaced Old English sealtian (“to dance”) borrowed from Latin saltāre (“to leap, dance”). More at thin.
Sources 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dance counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,869 | 1 in 116K | 2.9K | Dance | 289 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Dance | 171 |
| AU Australia | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Dance | 105 |
| CA Canada | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | Dance | 83 |
| FR France | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 237K | 33 | — | 2 |
| HU Hungary | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 85K | — | Dance | 3 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Dance | 22 |
2,869 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- George Dance the Youngerb. 1741GBEnglish architect, surveyor and portraitist (1741–1825)
- Jean Baptiste Hippolyte Danceb. 1797FRFrench pathologist (1797–1832)
- Stanley Danceb. 1910GBBritish music critic (1910–1999)
- Helen Oakley Danceb. 1913CACanadian writer and musician (1913–2001)
- Bill Danceb. 1940USAmerican fisherman
- Charles Danceb. 1946GBEnglish actor (born 1946)
- Rosalyn Danceb. 1948USAmerican politician in Virginia (born 1948)
- Trevor Danceb. 1958GBFootballer (born 1958)
- Seb Danceb. 1981GBBritish politician (born 1981)
- Leila DanceCACanadian politician
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 22 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.9K | #11,073 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.8K | #10,766 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.7K | #10,785 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 45 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 37 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 33 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 32 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 28 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 26 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 23 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 21 | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Kotík, Antonín, Naše příjmení (nové vydání, 1897)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Dance mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English dauncen, daunsen, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman dauncer, dancer (“to dance”) (compare Old French dancier), from Frankish *þansōn (“to draw, pull, stretch out, gesture”) (compare Ol… Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and Wiktionary and 1 other source.
- In which country does Dance have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.9 thousand people named Dance, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dance.
- How common is the name Dance?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,869 people named Dance in 2010, about 1 in 116 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Dance?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/danceThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Dance”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.