Dane
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from OE denu 'valley'; first attested Henry Bithedane Edw I Battle (Sussex)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/deɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Dane is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 6.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 11K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 18K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 477 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈41,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Croatia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from OE denu 'valley'; first attested Henry Bithedane Edw I Battle (Sussex)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dane 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Dane | 13 |
| US United States | — | 29,787 | 1 in 11K | 29K | Dane | 477 |
| AU Australia | #725 | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 6.1K | 101 | Dane | 181 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Dane | 195 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Dane | 84 |
| HR Croatia | — | 1,117 | 1 in 3.8K | 1.1K | — | — |
| NZ New Zealand | #605 | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 10K | 10 | Dane | 76 |
| JM Jamaica | #204 | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 7.1K | — | Dane | 21 |
| GY Guyana | — | 135 | 1 in 5.6K | 135 | — | 5 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Dane is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name representing a dialect variant of Dean that was common in south-east England, rather than an ethnic name for someone from Denmark. The latter sense may be behind the given name in some cases.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A person of Danish descent.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, inhabitant of Denmark; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Old English; "from Denmark"
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
English: transferred use of the surname, which was originally a local name representing a dialect variant of DEAN that was common in south-east England.
as a word
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Dane Clarkb. 1912USAmerican film actor (1912-1998)
- Dane Witherspoonb. 1957USAmerican actor (1957-2014)
- Steve Russellb. 1963USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician, soldier
- Dane Cookb. 1972USAmerican actor and comedian
- Dane Crossb. 1983USAmerican pornographic actor
- Dane Richardsb. 1983JMJamaican footballer
- Dane DeHaanb. 1986USAmerican actor
- Dane Colesb. 1986NZNew Zealand rugby union player
- Dane DiLiegrob. 1988USAmerican actor and basketball player
- Dane Scarlettb. 2004GBEnglish footballer
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 88 sources across 45 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3K | #10,555 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3K | #9,866 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.7K | #11,043 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Is Dane a male or female name?
- Dane is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Dane mean, and where does it come from?
- from OE denu 'valley'; first attested Henry Bithedane Edw I Battle (Sussex) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Dane?
- In the etymology graph, Dean and Dene are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Dane have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 41 thousand people named Dane in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dane.
- Where is Dane most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Dane is densest in Croatia — about 1 in 3.8 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Dane?
- A machine transcription gives /deɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Dane?
- In the United States, the national register counted 29,787 people named Dane in 2020, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is Dane compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Dane is the 204th most common given name of 21,568 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dane?
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/daneThe 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, “Dane” — the 204th most common given name in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.