Declan
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Declan is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Name of an early Irish saint, much increased in popularity in modern times.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 6.1K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 8.2K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 367 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
39,020 people, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
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)
Name of an early Irish saint, much increased in popularity in modern times.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Declan 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 | — | 39,020 | 1 in 8.5K | 39K | Declan | 367 |
| GB United Kingdom | #545 | ≈8,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | 8 | Declan | 249 |
| CN China | — | ≈7,100 est. | ≈1 in 197K | — | Declan | 16 |
| IE Ireland | #101 | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 7 | Declan | 157 |
| AU Australia | #718 | ≈4,100 est. | ≈1 in 6.1K | 129 | Declan | 196 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 33K | 26 | Declan | 66 |
39,020 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: NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Declan is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Deagldn, of uncertain derivation. It was borne by a 5th-century disciple of St Colman, who became a bishop in the district of Ardmore, Co. Waterford. In recent years the name has been strongly revived in Ireland.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A male given name from Old Irish, borne notably by Declán of Ardmore
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Deaglán , of uncertain derivation. It was borne by a 5th-century disciple of St Colman, who became a bishop in the district of Ardmore. In recent years the name has been strongly revived in Ireland.
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)
- Declan Donnellanb. 1953GBBritish theatre director (born 1953)
- Elvis Costellob. 1954GBnot in their usual nameEnglish singer-songwriter (born 1954)
- Declan Quinnb. 1957USAmerican cinematographer
- Declan O'Brienb. 1962USAmerican writer and producer
- Declan Donnellyb. 1975GBEnglish television presenter (born 1975)
- Declan Ruddb. 1991GBEnglish association football player
- Declan McKennab. 1998GBBritish musician
- Declan Riceb. 1999GBEnglish footballer (born 1999)
- Declan Hillb. 2000CACanadian journalist and author
- Declan PowerIEIrish soldier
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 51 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 39K | #1,065 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 2.6K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 251 | #1,065 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2010 | 129 | #81 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2015 | 70 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 26 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 26 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2021 | 22 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2021 | 22 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2021 | 22 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 17 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2017 | 10 | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- Is Declan a male or female name?
- Declan 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 Declan mean, and where does it come from?
- Name of an early Irish saint, much increased in popularity in modern times. Recorded by Irish first names.
- In which country does Declan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 39 thousand people named Declan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled declan.
- How common is the name Declan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 39,020 people named Declan in 2020, about 1 in 8.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Declan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Declan is the 101st most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Declan?
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/declanThe 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, “Declan” — the 101st most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.