Dakota
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The Santee branch of the Sioux people
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Dakota is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 3.2K(measured from records)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 23K
- CACanada≈1 in 39K
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)
- Sources
- 450 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.2K (inferred from the name graph)
102,684 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
The Santee branch of the Sioux people.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dakota 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 | 102,684 | 1 in 3.2K | 73K | Dakota | 450 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 23K | 63 | Dakota | 127 |
| CA Canada | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 39K | 5 | Dakota | 182 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 79K | 9 | Dakota | 100 |
| BD Bangladesh | ≈620 est. | ≈1 in 261K | — | Dakota | 3 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈78 est. | ≈1 in 63K | 13 | Dakota | 44 |
102,684 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; QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; 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)
Dakota 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, N. American people
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, seit der Jahrtausendwende aus dem
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Finnish, either of the two states North Dakota or South Dakota
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Dakota (a member of the Dakota people)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, having a large penis; well-hung
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)
- Dakota Kaib. 1988NZNew Zealand professional wrestler
- Dakota Meyerb. 1988USUnited States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient
- Dakota Johnsonb. 1989USAmerican actress (born 1989)
- Dak Prescottb. 1993USnot in their usual nameAmerican football player (born 1993)
- Dakota Fanningb. 1994USAmerican actress (born 1994)
- Dakota Blue Richardsb. 1994GBEnglish actress
- Dakota Daulbyb. 1994CACanadian actor
- Dakota Hudsonb. 1994USbaseball player (1994-)
- Chany Dakotab. 1996DEGerman influencer, actress and presenter
- Dakota Goyob. 1999CACanadian actor
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 57 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 73K | #543 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 30K | #543 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.1K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1K | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2011 | 63 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 46 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 28 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2017 | 19 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2017 | 19 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2017 | 19 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 13 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2023 | 11 | — |
Reference works 3
- 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
- Is Dakota a male or female name?
- Dakota is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Dakota have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 103 thousand people named Dakota, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dakota.
- Where is Dakota most common?
- Dakota is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 3.2 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Dakota?
- In the United States, the national register counted 102,684 people named Dakota in 2020, about 1 in 3.2 thousand residents.
- What does the name Dakota mean, and where does it come from?
- The Santee branch of the Sioux people. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What do you want to know about Dakota?
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/dakotaThe 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, “Dakota”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.