David
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A timeless classic of Hebrew origin meaning 'beloved', representing strength, leadership, and musicality
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/deɪvɪd/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
David is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common given name.
- CZCzechia1 in 53(measured from records)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 65
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 77
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than David itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #10 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 732 (measured from records)
- 1 in 53 (inferred from the name graph)
2,813,017 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Davit in GE Georgia.
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)
A timeless classic of Hebrew origin meaning 'beloved', representing strength, leadership, and musicality.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
David 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 | #6 | 2,813,017 | 1 in 118 | 2.8M | David | 732 |
| GB United Kingdom | #2 | ≈1,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 65 | 342 | David | 517 |
| NG Nigeria | #20 | ≈810,000 est. | ≈1 in 264 | listed | David | 190 |
| ID Indonesia | #72 | ≈620,000 est. | ≈1 in 428 | listed | David | 259 |
| CA Canada | #5 | ≈420,000 est. | ≈1 in 91 | 76 | David | 418 |
| AU Australia | #4 | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 86 | 3 | David | 427 |
| CZ Czechia | #7 | 202,622 | 1 in 53 | 203K | David | 223 |
| GE Georgia | #4 | 68,105as დავით | 1 in 59 | 68K | Davit | 160 |
| NZ New Zealand | #3 | ≈64,000 est. | ≈1 in 77 | — | David | 252 |
2,813,017 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Georgia PSDA/SDA civil-registry name statistics (per-token API); MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)
David 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.
Name of Hebraic origin, in the Tabelle Baden 1809 List. David was changed for Tewel or Tewele since 1722 in Palati- nate.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
In English, Hebrew name of uncertain meaning; used in Ireland as equivalent of Daithi and in Wales of Dewi; borne by St David of Menevia.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Hebrew David 'darling, friend'; first attested Dauid clericus 1150–60 DC (L).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In German, from the biblical given name David, Hebrew dāwīd 'beloved'.
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, biblical given name, source for patronymic Dawison.
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Caspar David Friedrichb. 1774SEGerman Romantic landscape painter (1774–1840)
- Henry David Thoreaub. 1817USAmerican essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817–1862)
- David Rockefellerb. 1915USAmerican banker and philanthropist (1915–2017)
- Kenneth Kaundab. 1924ZMnot in their usual nameFirst president of Zambia (1924–2021)
- David Juliusb. 1955USAmerican physiologist and Nobel laureate 2021
- David Woodardb. 1964USAmerican conductor and writer
- Dave Grohlb. 1969USnot in their usual nameAmerican rock musician
- David Jamesb. 1970GBEnglish association football player
- David Beckhamb. 1975GBEnglish footballer (born 1975)
- Jon Moxleyb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler and 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).
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 223 sources across 116 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.8M | #4 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 203K | #26 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 101K | #29 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.6K | #4 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 499 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 76 | #40 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 1997 | 6 | — |
Reference works 13
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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)
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- Kotík, Antonín, Naše příjmení (nové vydání, 1897)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 David mean, and where does it come from?
- A timeless classic of Hebrew origin meaning 'beloved', representing strength, leadership, and musicality. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is David a male or female name?
- David 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.
- In which country does David have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.8 million people named David, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled david.
- Where is David most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, David is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 53 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name David?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,813,017 people named David in 2020, about 1 in 118 residents.
- How common is David compared with other names?
- In the United States, David is the 6th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name David?
- In the etymology graph, Davi, Dewi and Davit are forms of the same name in other languages; Dave and Davy are recorded short or pet forms.
- How do you pronounce David?
- A machine transcription gives /deɪvɪd/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about David?
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/davidThe 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, “David” — the 6th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.