Dave

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Dave is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: A diminutive of the male given name David, also used as a formal given name.

rarermore common
  • CACanada≈1 in 836(inferred from the name graph)
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.1K
  • NLNetherlands≈1 in 1.2K

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)

67,929 people, 2020

#741 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
609 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 836 (inferred from the name graph)

Canada, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

DaveLatin(measured from records)
데이브Hangul(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)

A diminutive of the male given name David, also used as a formal given name.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Dave 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.

Where Dave is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#32367,9291 in 4.9K68KDave609
GB United Kingdom#282≈48,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Dave323
CA Canada#138≈45,000 est.≈1 in 8362Dave321
PH Philippines#381≈34,000 est.≈1 in 3.2K—Dave149
NL Netherlands#184≈14,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K6.6KDave146
NZ New Zealand#148≈4,600 est.≈1 in 1.1K—Dave163
IE Ireland#176≈4,100 est.≈1 in 1.3K—Dave119

67,929 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Dave is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Davé, Dave', Dāve, Davè, Dâvê

  • Spanish given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Mexico, United Kingdom

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written D'Ave, Davé, Dáve, Dävė, Dâvë

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Davè, Davé, Dävé, Davě

  • French given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, United Kingdom

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Davé, Dâve, Dâvë, Dåvé, Dâvê

  • Polish given name21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Дэйв, Даве, Давэ, Davé, Дэив

93 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Dave 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.

  • Informal short form of David.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In fj, to flow, of liquids in a small stream (_drōdrō_ is stronger, and _dobui_ the strongest word); commonly of the flow of blood

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In Serbo-Croatian, third-person plural present of daviti

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Czech, vocative singular of dav

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Breton, envoi, renvoi, référence

    as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)

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)

1940196019802000Dave Bing, b. 1943Dave Cowens, b. 1948Dave Gibbons, b. 1949Dave Legeno, b. 1963Dave Foley, b. 1963Dave Navarro, b. 1967Dave Grohl, b. 1969Dave Sheridan, b. 1969Dave Filoni, b. 1974Joe Gomez, b. 1997
  • Dave Bingb. 1943USAmerican basketball player and politician (born 1943)
  • Dave Cowensb. 1948USAmerican basketball player and coach
  • Dave Gibbonsb. 1949GBEnglish comics artist and writer
  • Dave Legenob. 1963GBBritish actor, boxer and cage fighter (1963-2014)
  • Dave Foleyb. 1963CACanadian actor (born 1963)
  • Dave Navarrob. 1967USAmerican guitarist
  • Dave Grohlb. 1969USAmerican rock musician
  • Dave Sheridanb. 1969USAmerican actor
  • Dave Filonib. 1974USAmerican film director (born 1974)
  • Joe Gomezb. 1997GBnot in their usual nameEnglish association football player (born 1997)

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 96 sources across 52 countries.

Official registers attesting Dave
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202068K#749
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—6.6K#551
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020186#749
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202555—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)202419—
CA CanadaAlberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender20242#1,520

Reference works 4

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Dave mean, and where does it come from?
A diminutive of the male given name David, also used as a formal given name. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Dave?
In the etymology graph, Davi, Dewi and Davide are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of David.
How common is the name Dave?
In the United States, the national register counted 67,929 people named Dave in 2020, about 1 in 4.9 thousand residents.
How common is Dave compared with other names?
In the United States, Dave is the 323rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
Is Dave a male or female name?
Dave 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.
In which country does Dave have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 68 thousand people named Dave, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dave.

What do you want to know about Dave?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/dave

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Dave” — the 323rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Dave parses inside a full name →