Denys
Denys is a girl's name that peaked in 1988, when it was the 4,496th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 2025. About 600 Denyses are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 36.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Denys boys named Denys
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 641
- Estimated living today
- 600
- Median age today
- 36
- Peak year
- 1988
- Best rank
- 4,496th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1944
- Girls / boys
- 426 / 215
How old the living Denyses are
born that year still alive today
Of the 641 babies given the name since 1944, about 600 are alive — 94 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1989 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Ancient Greek
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Denyss
- Denys Shmyhal (born 1975)Ukrainian politician, former Prime Minister of Ukraine
- Denys Monastyrskyi (1980–2023)Ukrainian lawyer and politician
- Denys Harmash (born 1990)Ukrainian footballer
- Denys Boyko (born 1988)Ukrainian footballer
- Denys Arcand (born 1941)Canadian film director
- Denys Prokopenko (born 1991)Ukrainian military officer
- Denys Calvaert (1540–1619)Flemish-Italian painter
- Denys de La Patellière (1921–2013)French film director and scriptwriter
People named Denys with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Denys is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Denys is most concentrated in California (9.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1988
The most popular girls’ names the year Denys peaked:
Denys elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Denys +1 spelling | 1,600 | 216th |
| Poland boys | Denys | 259 birth registrations | 199th |
| England and Wales boys | Denys | 42 | 2,921st |
| Belgium boys | Denys | 5 | 1,207th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Denys: rank by region
In 2025, Denys was given 2 times or more in 7 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Denys | 209 | 3 |
| Lubuskie | Denys | 138 | 2 |
| Łódzkie | Denys | 158 | 3 |
| Mazowieckie | Denys | 312 | 2 |
| Opolskie | Denys | 126 | 2 |
| Śląskie | Denys | 212 | 3 |
| Wielkopolskie | Denys | 248 | 2 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Denys among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Denys | 21 | 21 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Denys lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,343 men called Denys were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Denys | 259 | 0.258 | 369 |
| Valencia/València | Denys | 177 | 0.131 | 569 |
| Málaga | Denys | 108 | 0.123 | 522 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Denys | 34 | 0.109 | 696 |
| Girona | Denys | 44 | 0.106 | 727 |
| Lleida | Denys | 21 | 0.089 | 861 |
Listed in 31 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 21 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Denys against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.