Didier
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Late Latin Désiderius, derivative of désiderium ‘longing’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/didje/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Didier is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country, where it is the 79th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 489(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 569
- CMCameroon≈1 in 1.4K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 411 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 489 (inferred from the name graph)
≈140,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Late Latin Désiderius, derivative of désiderium ‘longing’. Compare Desiderio in Spanish supplement.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Didier 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #79 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 489 | 237K | Didier | 411 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #87 | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Didier | 40 |
| BE Belgium | #52 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 569 | 635 | Didier | 166 |
| CM Cameroon | #90 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Didier | 31 |
| CN China | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 133K | — | Didier | 21 |
| CH Switzerland | #287 | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 121 | Didier | 105 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 3,076 | 1 in 5.5K | 3.1K | — | 8 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 2,093 | 1 in 2.4K | 2.1K | — | — |
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 prénoms (1900–2024); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INEC — civil registry names; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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)
Didier 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 French, longed-for child, or in expression of the Christian’s spiri¬ tual longing for God). The name was borne by a 3rd-cent. bishop of Langres and a 6th-cent. bishop of Vienne in the Dauphine, both of whom were locally venerated as saints. Var.: Dizier. Cogns.: It.: Desideri(o). Hung.: Dezso. Dims.: Fr.: Didion, Did(i)ot, Dideron, Did(e)rot, Didelot, Didelet. Patrs.: Hung.: Dessewffy, Dezsoffi.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In French, a male given name, borne by two early French saints
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Du latin Desiderius, « désiré ». Nom de saint : Didier de Vienne, fêté le 23 mai.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, Du latin Desiderius, « désiré ». Fête: saint Didier, évêque et martyr (8 mai).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In French, même origine que Désir.
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
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)
- Didier Ratsirakab. 1936MGPresident of Madagascar (1936-2021)
- Didier Flamandb. 1947FRFrench actor
- Didier Bourdonb. 1959FRFrench actor and director (born 1959)
- Didier Burkhalterb. 1960CHmember of the Swiss Federal Council from 2009 to 2017
- Didier van Cauwelaertb. 1960FRFrench writer
- Didier Quelozb. 1966CHSwiss astronomer
- Didier Deschampsb. 1968FRFrench association football player and coach
- Didier Drogbab. 1978CIIvorian and French association football player
- Didier Zokorab. 1980CIIvorian association football player
- Didier Ya Konanb. 1984CIIvorian footballer
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 89 sources across 47 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2022 | 237K | #2,502 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 3.1K | #372 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 2.1K | #341 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 63 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1935 | 30 | #535 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- Where does the name Didier come from?
- From Late Latin Désiderius, derivative of désiderium ‘longing’. Compare Desiderio in Spanish supplement. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Didier a male or female name?
- Didier 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 Didier mean?
- Recorded meaning: From Late Latin Désiderius, derivative of désiderium ‘longing’.
- In which country does Didier have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 139 thousand people named Didier in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled didier.
- How do you pronounce Didier?
- A machine transcription gives /didje/ (IPA) for French.
- What are other forms of the name Didier?
- In the etymology graph, Desi, Desiderio and Désirée are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Didier?
- In Ecuador, the national register counted 3,076 people named Didier in 2024, about 1 in 5.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Didier compared with other names?
- In France, Didier is the 79th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Didier?
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/didierThe 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, “Didier” — the 79th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.