Duane
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Irish surname-name, from Gaelic Dubhán ‘little dark one’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dwajn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Duane is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 3K
- CACanada≈1 in 3.1K
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
- 509 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈490,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Irish surname-name, from Gaelic Dubhán ‘little dark one’
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Duane 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 | — | ≈490,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Duane | 22 |
| US United States | #409 | 71,865 | 1 in 4.6K | 71K | Duane | 509 |
| GB United Kingdom | #526 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.3K | 3 | Duane | 186 |
| CA Canada | #407 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | 1 | Duane | 193 |
| IT Italy | #782 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | — | Duane | 18 |
| DZ Algeria | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Duane | 3 |
| SG Singapore | #276 | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Duane | 31 |
| IE Ireland | #257 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Duane | 53 |
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); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Duane is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Irish: Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Dubhdn (pronounced ‘doo-vain’). This was originally a byname, a diminutive of Gaelic dubh ‘dark’, ‘black’. In modern use it may be derived from the surname O Dubhdin ‘descendant of Dubhan’. Its popularity in the mid- 1950s was influenced by the guitarist Duane Eddy. Variants: Dwane, Dwayne.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Irish Gaelic: a little dark one
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Irish and English: Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Dubhán , originally a byname representing a diminutive form of Gaelic dubh dark, black. In modern use it may well represent the surname Ó Dubháin ‘descendant of Dubhán’, derived from the personal name. Its popularity since the mid-1950s was no doubt influenced by the fame of the guitarist and singer Duane Eddy. Variants: Dwane, Dwayne .
as a word
In Indonesian, customs (office that taxes imported goods)
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)
- Duane Jonesb. 1937USAmerican actor (1937–1988)
- Duane Eddyb. 1938USAmerican guitarist (1938–2024)
- Robert Ballardb. 1942USnot in their usual nameUnited States Navy officer, oceanographer and underwater archaeologist
- Duane Allmanb. 1946USAmerican guitarist (1946–1971)
- Duane Chaseb. 1950USAmerican actor, born 1950
- Charlie Bakerb. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican businessman & politician (born 1956)
- Tom Arnoldb. 1959USnot in their usual nameAmerican stand-up comedian and actor (born 1959)
- Duane Whitakerb. 1959USAmerican actor
- Duane Martinb. 1965USAmerican actor
- Tim Hardawayb. 1966USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player (born 1966)
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 53 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 71K | #712 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 374 | #712 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 51 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 1991 | 23 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1989 | 6 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1989 | 3 | #335 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,230 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2020 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | The Penguin Book of Baby Names (David Pickering) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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 Duane mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish surname-name, from Gaelic Dubhán ‘little dark one’ Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Duane a male or female name?
- Duane 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 are other forms of the name Duane?
- In the etymology graph, Dwayne, DeWayne and Devin are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Duane have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 488 thousand people named Duane in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled duane.
- How do you pronounce Duane?
- A machine transcription gives /dwajn/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Duane?
- In the United States, the national register counted 71,865 people named Duane in 2020, about 1 in 4.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Duane compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Duane is the 257th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Duane?
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/duaneThe 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, “Duane” — the 257th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.