Daniel
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the Hebrew male personal name Daniel, literally ‘God is my judge’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dænjəl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Daniel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 15th most common given name.
- CZCzechia1 in 88(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 110
- ARArgentina≈1 in 148
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)
- #22 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 697 (measured from records)
- 1 in 88 (inferred from the name graph)
1,607,193 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
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 the Hebrew male personal name Daniel, literally ‘God is my judge’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Daniel 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 | #15 | 1,607,193 | 1 in 207 | 1.6M | Daniel | 697 |
| BR Brazil | #20 | 770,743 | 1 in 275 | 771K | Daniel | 304 |
| NG Nigeria | #25 | ≈750,000 est. | ≈1 in 286 | — | Daniel | 183 |
| DE Germany | #20 | ≈400,000 est. | ≈1 in 203 | — | Daniel | 366 |
| GB United Kingdom | #19 | ≈380,000 est. | ≈1 in 174 | 3 | Daniel | 451 |
| CO Colombia | #12 | ≈330,000 est. | ≈1 in 150 | 10 | Daniel | 255 |
| AR Argentina | #7 | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 148 | 3.2K | Daniel | 227 |
| CZ Czechia | #20 | 121,870 | 1 in 88 | 122K | Daniel | 189 |
| SE Sweden | #20 | 92,434 | 1 in 110 | 92K | Daniel | 209 |
| HU Hungary | #18 | 64,020 | 1 in 153 | 64K | Daniel | 197 |
1,607,193 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); the co-datosgov-candidates register; MVČR — living population register 2017; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025). 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)
Daniel 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.
From the Hebrew name דָּנִיֵּאל (Dāniyyēl), composed of the elements דָּן (dan) meaning 'to judge' and אֵל (el) meaning 'God'.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Daniel means 'God is my judge,' reflecting a foundational belief in divine justice and sovereignty.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Daniel means "God is my Judge."
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Daniel is associated with wisdom, faithfulness, and courage. The biblical Daniel was a man of great integrity and faith who rose to a high position in a foreign land while remaining true to his beliefs, even in the face of extreme danger.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Hebrew Daniel ‘God has judged’; first attested Eudo filius Daniel 1121–48 Bury (Sf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
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)
- Daniel Bernoullib. 1700CHSwiss mathematician and physicist (1700-1782)
- Louis Armstrongb. 1901USnot in their usual nameAmerican jazz musician, trumpeter and singer (1901–1971)
- Daniel arap Moib. 1924KEKenyan President (2nd) (1924-2020)
- Danny Elfmanb. 1953USnot in their usual nameAmerican film composer (born 1953)
- Danny Boyleb. 1956GBnot in their usual nameEnglish filmmaker
- Daniel Day-Lewisb. 1957GBBritish actor
- Éric Cantonab. 1966FRnot in their usual nameFrench footballer and actor (born 1966)
- Nicușor Danb. 1969ROnot in their usual namePresident of Romania since 2025
- Daniel Alvesb. 1983BRBrazilian footballer
- Daniel Noboab. 1987ECPresident of Ecuador since 2023
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 224 sources across 107 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.6M | #9 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 771K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 766K | #17 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 711K | #40 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes no Brasil API (Census 2010 + 2022) | — | 707K | #14 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 122K | #42 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 92K | #31 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 61K | #49 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 57K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 5.6K | #9 |
Reference works 13
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Kotík, Antonín, Naše příjmení (nové vydání, 1897)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- 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 Daniel a male or female name?
- Daniel 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 Daniel mean, and where does it come from?
- from the Hebrew male personal name Daniel, literally ‘God is my judge’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Daniel have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.6 million people named Daniel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled daniel.
- Where is Daniel most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Daniel is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 88 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Daniel?
- In the etymology graph, Danilo, Daniele and Danial are forms of the same name in other languages; Dan, Danny and Dani are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Daniel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,607,193 people named Daniel in 2020, about 1 in 207 residents.
- How common is Daniel compared with other names?
- In the United States, Daniel is the 15th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Daniel?
- A machine transcription gives /dænjəl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Daniel?
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/danielThe 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, “Daniel” — the 15th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.