Deirdre
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Deirdre is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Name of uncertain meaning; borne by the heroine of the tragic Irish legend of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach.
- IEIreland≈1 in 922(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 8.6K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 9K
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)
- Sources
- 432 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 922 (inferred from the name graph)
≈61,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Name of uncertain meaning; borne by the heroine of the tragic Irish legend of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Deirdre 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 | — | ≈61,000 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Deirdre | 10 |
| US United States | — | 15,807 | 1 in 21K | 16K | Deirdre | 432 |
| GB United Kingdom | #743 | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 9K | 3 | Deirdre | 193 |
| IE Ireland | #110 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 922 | — | Deirdre | 151 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Deirdre | 8 |
| AU Australia | #863 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.6K | 5 | Deirdre | 157 |
| NZ New Zealand | #634 | ≈440 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 13 | Deirdre | 79 |
| JM Jamaica | #231 | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | Deirdre | 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); 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)
Deirdre 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.
In English, Irish; sorrow; character from Irish legend
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, The foremost tragic heroine in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Dolor, pesar, aflicción
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Scottish Gaelic, a female given name from Old Irish
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Ķeltu mitoloģijā - Olsteras karaļa Konhobara barda Fedlimida meita, kurai mazai esot druīds Katbads pareģoja, ka viņa būs ļoti skaista, bet nesīs postu un nāvi Olsterai
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Pema Chödrönb. 1936USnot in their usual nameAmerican philosopher
- Deirdre O'Connellb. 1939USIrish American actress, singer, and theatre director (1939-2001)
- Deirdre N. McCloskeyb. 1942USAmerican economist & academic
- Deirdre O'Connellb. 1951USAmerican actress
- Deirdre Barrettb. 1954USAmerican psychologist
- Siobhan Faheyb. 1958IEnot in their usual nameIrish singer; known from Banarama and Shakespears Sister
- Deirdre Maddenb. 1960GBBritish Irish writer
- Deirdre Lovejoyb. 1962USAmerican actress
- Deirdre Quinnb. 1970USAmerican actress
- Niele Iveyb. 1977USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player and coach
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 47 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 16K | #1,843 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 19 | #1,843 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 13 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1974 | 13 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 1968 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1986 | 3 | #565 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2015 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2015 | 1 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2022 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | The Penguin Book of Baby Names (David Pickering) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 Deirdre mean, and where does it come from?
- Name of uncertain meaning; borne by the heroine of the tragic Irish legend of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Deirdre a male or female name?
- Deirdre is a female 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 are other forms of the name Deirdre?
- In the etymology graph, Deidre, Deidra and Deitra are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Deirdre have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 61 thousand people named Deirdre in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled deirdre.
- How common is the name Deirdre?
- In the United States, the national register counted 15,807 people named Deirdre in 2020, about 1 in 21 thousand residents.
- How common is Deirdre compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Deirdre is the 110th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Deirdre?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/deirdreThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Deirdre” — the 110th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.