Des
loc · Latin script
Meaning: from Slavic stem 'Erwerb' 'acquisition, gain'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Des is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 103K(inferred from the name graph)
- FRFrance≈1 in 112K
- CMCameroon≈1 in 54K
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 (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 268 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 54K (inferred from the name graph)
≈710 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Cameroon, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Dęs in CM Cameroon.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Slavic stem 'Erwerb' 'acquisition, gain'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Des 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 | ≈710 est. | ≈1 in 466K | 336 | — | 117 |
| FR France | ≈610 est. | ≈1 in 112K | 17 | Des | 268 |
| CM Cameroon | ≈520 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Dęs | 5 |
| CA Canada | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 103K | 1 | Des | 83 |
| MA Morocco | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 196K | — | Des | 10 |
| SN Senegal | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 139K | — | Des | 8 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈95 est. | ≈1 in 183K | 37 | — | 18 |
| ES Spain | 88 | 1 in 568K | 88 | Des | 20 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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)
Des 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 Romanian, adj. ; cf. si sl. Aeck inventie" (Mikl), pren. srb. cr. Desa si Desislay. 1. Desa s. 2. Desea b. (Ard) ; Desescul mar. (Drag) ; Daseti (ib.). 3. Desild (Arh), cf. srb. Desilo (Rad vol. 82 p. 115). Det/a, -ea, -ea, -coiul v. D cat II
as a nameDictionar Onomastic Rominesc
In Khmer, to sew. to hem. mqscS: (= wums) sewing machine. iJl & CSJ tailor, seamstress
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Esperanto, the; used with ju and either pli (“more”) or malpli (“less”) to form the second half of a coordinated comparative.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, plural of un (“some”, the plural indefinite article)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of deis (“dais”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Des Smithb. 1914CACanadian ice hockey player (1914-1981)
- Des Braidenb. 1937IEactor
- Des Lynamb. 1942IETV presenter
- Des Thomsonb. 1942NZNew Zealand racing cyclist
- Des Browneb. 1952GBBritish politician (born 1952)
- Des Bremnerb. 1952GBScottish footballer (born 1952)
- Des McAnuffb. 1952USAmerican-Canadian film director
- Des Walkerb. 1965GBEnglish association football player (born 1965)
- Des Lyttleb. 1971GBfootballer, football manager (born 1971)
- Des Abbottb. 1986AUAustralian male field hockey player
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 27 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 336 | #18,408 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 250 | #18,408 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 88 | #30,137 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 88 | #30,016 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 37 | #8,058 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 29 | #15,942 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 17 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1971 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1955 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,418 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name 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
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 Des mean, and where does it come from?
- from Slavic stem 'Erwerb' 'acquisition, gain' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- In which country does Des have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 713 people named Des in the United States, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Des?
- In Spain, the national register counted 88 people named Des, about 1 in 568 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Des?
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/desThe 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, “Des”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.