Dexter
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from a form of Dyster, noted in Essex, Leicester, Suffolk and Warwickshire; first attested John, Ralph le Dextere 1262 FrLeic
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɛkstɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Dexter is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Guyana it is the 17th most common given name.
- GYGuyana1 in 802(measured from records)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.9K
- USUnited States1 in 12K
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
- 463 (measured from records)
- 1 in 802 (inferred from the name graph)
≈59,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a form of Dyster, noted in Essex, Leicester, Suffolk and Warwickshire; first attested John, Ralph le Dextere 1262 FrLeic
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dexter 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 | — | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Dexter | 31 |
| PH Philippines | #409 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Dexter | 140 |
| US United States | — | 26,692 | 1 in 12K | 27K | Dexter | 463 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 20K | 8 | Dexter | 184 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Dexter | 15 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,229 | 1 in 8.3K | 1.2K | — | 25 |
| GY Guyana | #17 | 936 | 1 in 802 | 936 | Dexter | 5 |
| SG Singapore | #695 | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 9.4K | — | Dexter | 73 |
| JM Jamaica | #174 | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 7.2K | — | Dexter | 11 |
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); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Dexter 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, Right; on the right-hand side. (In heraldry, specifically the bearer's right, which is the viewer's left.)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, ‘female dyer’, from Old English degestre.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Diestro (referido a la mano derecha)
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Latin, right (relative direction), right hand
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, Bibl
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)
- Dexter Gordonb. 1923USAmerican jazz saxophonist (1923–1990)
- Dennis Haysbertb. 1954USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1954)
- Dexter Scott Kingb. 1961USAmerican civil rights activist (1961-2024)
- Dexter Fletcherb. 1966GBEnglish actor and director
- Dexter Jacksonb. 1969USAmerican bodybuilder
- P. Djèlí Clarkb. 1971USnot in their usual nameAmerican speculative fiction writer and professor of history
- Dexter Blackstockb. 1986AGAntigua and Barbuda footballer
- Dexter Fowlerb. 1986USAmerican baseball player
- Dexter Pittmanb. 1988USAmerican basketball player (born 1988)
- Dexter Dardenb. 1991USAmerican 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 72 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 10K | #3,535 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 9.7K | #3,390 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.4K | #3,691 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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)
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 Dexter mean, and where does it come from?
- from a form of Dyster, noted in Essex, Leicester, Suffolk and Warwickshire; first attested John, Ralph le Dextere 1262 FrLeic Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Dexter a male or female name?
- Dexter 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 Dexter have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 59 thousand people named Dexter in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dexter.
- Where is Dexter most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Dexter is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 802 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Dexter?
- A machine transcription gives /dɛkstɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Dexter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 26,692 people named Dexter in 2020, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Dexter compared with other names?
- In Guyana, Dexter is the 17th most common given name of 15,440 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dexter?
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/dexterThe 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, “Dexter” — the 17th most common given name in Guyana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.